


Bright Future

by captainecchi



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Forgotten Realms
Genre: 90 Percent Flashbacks by Volume, Amateur Mycology as Flirtation, Amateur Zymurgy as Flirtation, Angst, Cultural Differences, Drow, Drow Being Awful, Drow Culture, Drow Linguistics, Druids, Drunkenness, Eberron (Setting), Elf Fancying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, He Got Better, I can't deny this is shippy any more, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Just a little bit of Eberron in your Forgotten Realms, Mentions of dissociation, Minor Character Death, Murder elves, Nightmares, Out of the Abyss, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Elf Boys Being Sad, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Suicidal Thoughts, Telepathy, Telepathy causing more problems than it solves, The Underdark (Forgotten Realms), and hypervigilance, do not eat random mushrooms, kalashtar, my second favorite murder elves, nothing says PTSD like flashbacks, suicidal thoughts as side effect of revivify spell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainecchi/pseuds/captainecchi
Summary: Jorlan Duskryn, now prisoner of the heroes of Velkynvelve, has left a trail of ash behind him. Lost in the surface world, with no home to return to, the druid Mavash tries to convince him of his bright future.Based on the latter half of my playthrough of the "Out of the Abyss" adventure. But, like, with more feels, elf fancying, and spreading friendship across the Underdark.While there are some inevitable spoilers, our campaign is very different from the rules-as-written module, and the focus here is more on characterization and emotion than plot, anyway. Don't be scared away if you haven't played the module!--Chapter 10: Araj. In which Vizeran continues to be insufferable, Mavash gets angry, and Jorlan Explains It All (where "all" = drow politics)
Relationships: Jorlan Duskryn/Original Female Character
Comments: 57
Kudos: 12





	1. Ssussun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is spoilery for the "Out of the Abyss" module through the events at Gauntlgrym -- though see my thoughts on spoilers, above.
> 
> Our campaign has a few differences from the rules-as-written adventure, which I've enumerated at the end.

Jorlan Duskryn found it hard to rest in Gauntlgrym. 

He was back below ground again, but there was still too much light. The Vault of Kings, where he and his companions were housed, kept the cycles of the surface day with hundreds of daylight-enchanted driftglobes. At night, the globes dimmed, but thousands of coal braziers and candles and phosphorescent fungi made a light still brighter than Menzoberranzan in festival time.

With little to do during his companions' interminable meetings with every worthy on the Sword Coast, he found himself wandering the massive halls of the dwarven city at all hours, from the Vault of Kings down to the Great Forge. He explored mining tunnels and the mazes of ancient crypts, and the cycles of rest and wake melted before him.

Most of the time, he was alone with his racing thoughts. Replaying everything he had done wrong, from the time he had made the rash decision to spite Shoor and open that prison door. A petty, childish revenge fantasy, which played out to his satisfaction -- until the end, when he was the only one alive to witness his supremacy. 

And for how long would he live? He didn't fully trust his companions--his jailors, really. They were _abban_ , not-enemies, ones who hadn't betrayed him yet. But they were interesting, and they were powerful. He had always known how to make himself useful to powerful people.

He was returning to the guest quarters, crossing the sprawl of the Vault of Kings, when he came face to face with a patrol of dwarven guards. 

Axes and crossbows appeared immediately, and the six dwarves circled him, shouting in Dwarven and Common. Surprised and outnumbered, Jorlan raised his hands and backed into the nearest wall. 

A black-bearded dwarf, his hair peppered with grey, stepped forward to press the blade of his axe to Jorlan's throat. "What are you doing here, knife ear?" the dwarf spit at him, his eyes slitted with hatred.

_Knife ear_. Jorlan spoke a choppy Common, at best, and so it took a moment to put the two familiar words together into a slur--one he'd wager they didn't call other elves. 

Ignoring the sting of cold steel--and his own indignity--he assessed the situation. Most of the patrols in the Vault of Kings knew him by now, and knew he was in the custody of the "heroes of Velkynvelve." (How it grated to hear them called that. They would still be sitting there if it weren't for him. Or in Menzoberranzan, being sacrificed at the end of an eight-legged dagger). They would meet him with a cold stare, and he would lower his eyes, and pass by unmolested.

But he had never seen these guards before, and clearly no one had bothered to inform them their king had welcomed a drow into their midst. He must have never ventured out during their shift before. _So... early morning?_

Jorlan met Black-beard's hatred with a cold smile. "Good morning to you, too. I'm a guest of the, ahem. 'Heroes of Velkynvelve.'" He ground his teeth around the words. "Just out for a stroll. Hard to rest here, you know?" His words weren't coming out nearly as smoothly as they sounded in his head.

Black-beard backed off a hair's breadth, hesitating. "Guest?"

"Well. Prisoner." The word made him flinch.

Black-beard looked him over dubiously, as if noting he was awfully clean for a prisoner. "Making an escape, I see." He gestured to the other guards, and said a few words in Dwarven; they closed the circle around Jorlan. "You'll come with us. Resist, and we'll show you where we throw away all our drow trash." He chuckled, and his eyes flitted down towards the floor--towards the pit of magma that heated the Great Forge, far below their feet.

Light, but they intended to drag him to some jail cell. "It's more like house arrest." Actually he said something inane like 'in-jail-in-home,' as close as he could manage in Common. "I've been staying in the guest quarters, with my traveling companions."

Six skeptical looks met his own. He could scarcely believe it, either. He knew he wasn't welcome here; knew that the "heroes" needed to maintain their veneer of credibility. An oubliette had been about what he'd expected when he'd surrendered.

But they had housed him beside them, and made sure he had the same amenities they enjoyed -- new clothes, warm baths, and plenty of that too-rich dwarven food. It was more than he deserved, but he wasn't about to let a couple of random dwarves take it from him. 

"Please," he begged. _Put aside your pride, Jorlan. It's lost on filth like them._ "Your, uh, princess. Eldeth. She can confirm it--"

" 'Her Highness' to you, drow," one of the other dwarves -- red-haired and red-bearded -- growled at him. "Don't sully her name." 

They divested Jorlan of his weapons -- the ones they could find, at least -- and dragged him back to a guard post, eyeing him and grumbling in Dwarven the whole way. 

Their captain seemed surprised to see Jorlan. He, at least, had seen the drow before. He assured the dwarves that yes, yes, this drow was in the custody of the heroes. Yes, they wished him to have his liberty and to be treated fairly. No, he did not need to be interrogated, or imprisoned. No, this was not a raid. He spoke in Common for Jorlan's benefit, giving him a smile that didn't reach his eyes. 

At last he was allowed to leave, his weapons returned to him. But of course he couldn't be free without hearing the inane comment he'd come to hate in his time in Gauntlgrym: 

_You know, our king is good friends with a drow._

Bone-weary, he returned to the suite he shared with Lux and Mavash, retreating to his bedroom without checking if either was in. He winced as he entered; a driftglobe embedded in the wall glowed with the grey light of dawn. It was an amenity for guests from the surface, meant to emulate the day-star passing outside a south-facing window. 

Right now it seemed specially designed to torment him. 

He drew a curtain across it in a huff, and collapsed on the bed. Trance settled upon him immediately.

* * *

He thought he had won. 

The yochlol had done their job, tearing at the enemy's vanguard, keeping the druid and the dragonborn constantly under threat and unable to mind their failing allies. One of the priestesses had summoned darkness upon the surface dwellers, too, leaving them blind except for a small square illuminated by the dragonborn's sunblade. The weapon's coruscating light kept Jorlan and his drow elites at a distance, but was no obstacle to the handmaidens of Lolth.

Nor was it an obstacle for the cloud of poison Ilvara had summoned, or the webbing she had trapped them in. With grim amusement, Jorlan sidestepped the poison, knowing Ilvara would readily sacrifice him for a victory over the "heroes of Velkynvelve." 

But with their enemies struggling, he dared to hope his victory would be sweet. That, now that Shoor was dead, and he had delivered the escaped prisoners into Ilvara's hands, she might forgive him. Might have a use for him again. Might invite him back to her bed.

One of the yochlol moved between the sunblade and Jorlan, and in the momentary dim, he could see the cave bear at the center of the melee, fur matted with blood, grinning maw full of dagger-long teeth. He knew that was the enemy's druid, and he knew that moments before she had been a rail-thin humanoid woman, knocked out of beast form by the attacks of the yochlol. Right now she stood between him and the spellcasters of their party, though, and Jorlan saw no way around. He aimed his crossbow at the bear's head and fired. 

The crossbow bolt hit the bear's shoulder, and the druid growled. The bear's eyes fixed his, far too intelligent for any beast. She had marked him; she knew what he had done, and she knew who he was. Jorlan recoiled a step. 

The tide turned quickly after that.

First, there was that _ssussan_ dragon. Where had they found a red dragon in the Underdark? A young one, to be sure, but still the size of a rothe and breathing fire. Jorlan gagged on the smell of his own soldiers' charred flesh, disconcertingly sweet.

Then that pallid sorcerer, the drow who was not a drow, had summoned a shadow hound on top of Ilvara. Behind the lines, cut off from Jorlan and the rest of his elites, the priestess had quickly been overpowered. With her concentration lost, the webbing had evaporated and the poison had dissipated. The other priestess fell to Goddess-knew-what, and the magical darkness lifted as well, leaving only the greys of the caverns as seen with darkvision.

One yochlol fell, then the other.

Jorlan heard Ilvara's screams, and the wet, snarling noises of the shadow hound feasting upon her. He watched her blood creep downhill towards him, still white with heat.

He wasn't conscious of having made the choice to live, to abandon Ilvara--he just found his feet carrying him towards the exit of the cave. He was a coward, but he would be an _alive_ coward.

He looked back once. The druid had returned to her humanoid form, one last casualty of the yochlol's attacks. She clutched a hand to her bloodied shoulder where Jorlan had shot her; with the other, she drew a pattern upon the air. He didn't know what she meant to cast, but he didn't waste time; he drew darkness around him like a cloak, and prepared to slip away.

And then there was light. Cold, blinding daylight, conjured into being deep beneath the ground. It banished darkness from every corner of the cavern, and tore away Jorlan's cloak of shadows--

* * *

He awoke in a panic, blinded by a dagger of daylight from the driftglobe. His bedsheets were wound around his body like a shroud; struggling to escape, he fell to the cold stone floor. He kicked the bedding aside and sat up, leaning against the stone wall, breathing hard. With shaking hands, he pulled his pillow over his head to block out the light. A strobing headache was already building in his temples, even with the driftglobe's light dimmed by a curtain.

What was _wrong_ with him? His heartbeat hammered in his chest and dinned like a drum in his ears; he couldn't catch a breath. It was embarassing, sitting here on the floor, made insensible by visions and memories, like some hardened soldier returning from war. Nothing that bad had happened to him. He was alive, after all.

He forced himself to take long, calming breaths, recalling what had come after the events in his dream. He remembered the changeling blood hunter--Lux, he heard them named--charging up to him in the form of a bloodthirsty half-elf. He remembered their chill blade at his neck, not much different than the dwarf's this morning. 

He remembered Mavash--the druid--a few paces behind, counseling Lux to peace, all while trying to staunch the bleeding from the wound _he_ had inflicted. Gaulir, the dragonborn paladin, and Umbra, the pallid sorcerer, were not far behind, and both had their own opinions on the worth of his life.

He had fallen to one knee and dropped his weapons at his side, making the drow gesture of surrender. Would these surface dwellers even recognize it--the tremendous deference it implied?

In the end, it was Gaulir who suggested Jorlan could be useful. In his voice like grinding stone, he said that the things they had seen in the Underdark -- the fiends of the Abyss making an incursion, drow cities attacked by demons, living beings turned to mindless hosts for fungal spores -- would scarcely be believed. They needed someone to corroborate their fantastic story, and who better than Jorlan, who had dogged their steps since Velkynvelve?

Jorlan merely had to follow them. To Mithril Hall, stronghold of his enemies. To the hated surface, with its blinding star. To help them march their armies down into his home to fight this demon threat. 

But he'd looked behind him at the line of bodies -- Shoor, Asha, Ilvara, all the warriors under his command. He imagined returning to Menzoberranzan, the sole survivor of the slaughter of Velkynvelve. The captain of the guard who had failed to protect the priestesses in his charge. The male drow who had let his lover, a daughter of powerful House Mizzrym, die. 

No, he would return as a traitor, not a hero. And he knew how he would be punished--the horrible abomination his body would be twisted into. 

He had spent his whole life making powerful people like him, but this was one palm he couldn't grease.

He'd accepted their offer. And, more or less grudgingly, they had accepted him.

* * *

There was a knock on the door.

He tossed the pillow to the bed, smoothing a hand through his hair. "Come in," he called in Common. No one needed to see him looking like a fussy child after a nap.

Mavash poked her head in around the door. "I wondered where you were." She spoke in Undercommon, only marginally better than his Common. "I tried to wake you for the meeting with Master Malkin this morning. If you were serious about--"

"I was out," he said, and looked at the wall across from him. Blessedly blank, and peaceful. "I was restless, so I thought I'd go for a walk."

Mavash stepped into the room. She towered over him, pale and gaunt and looking like a bundle of sticks he could break in his hand. She was wearing what he'd come to think of as her "official druid garb" -- green and white linens, white hair braided into intricate patterns, draped with jewelry that suggested her druid circle. At her neck was the Eldritch Windstone -- the gift from the Emerald Enclave, the gem that would make her beast forms stronger.

It was still so odd to see her so. When he first met her, in the prison at Velkynvelve, she was no less frail-looking than now, and wearing prisoner's rags. The guards had taken bets on which of the prisoners was going to break first under the oppressive weight of Velkynvelve's wards and hard labor. He'd had his money on her. 

Of course, that was before he'd seen her turn into a giant spider, rip the head off a quaggoth, and climb down the sheer cliffs of Velkynvelve with a myconid sprout on her back. 

Since then, he'd seen her in a dozen different forms -- surface creatures he mostly didn't have names for, suiting whatever purpose she required. Lately she fancied being a cave bear. 

But this form -- her humanoid form -- was most alien of all. She was subtly but uncannily different than any other race he had ever encountered -- taller than elves or humans, but with ears subtly pointed, like a half-elf. And sometimes, like the planar-touched, her eyes glowed with an inner fire.

But she was none of these things; nor was she the bloody fur and teeth like daggers she so often presented. 

He was still figuring it out.

Mavash watched him with concern knitting her brow. Jorlan felt a nudge in his mind, and the foreign thought intruded: _Are you unwell? You look flushed._

It was easy to reply like this, to just think his Drow proto-word-thoughts and let that telepathic link ease any linguistic misunderstandings. This was how she communicated with her companions when in beast form; how they could anticipate what five hundred pounds of furry murder was going to do next in battle.

But it was only recently she'd begun addressing him like that -- during the fight with the kalaraq quori, whatever that was -- and he'd learned there was a certain intimacy that was part and parcel with telepathy. 

She had given him a simple, one-word command: _Run_. But it wasn't just a word; it was a whole jumble of thoughts and feelings. _You don't need to be here you don't need to protect us this is my fight my burden as kalashtar as vessel of Vash be safe I want you to live--_

_I want you to live_. Well, that makes one.

Likewise, he was sure he was transmitting his own undercurrent of self-loathing to her right now, no matter how much he tried to still his mind, or how he pulled his lips into a smile. He gestured at his face, responding, _How can you tell with this complexion?_

_You're a slightly darker grey. Very subtle. Your people must tell all kinds of embarrassing stories without anybody being any wiser._

_Mmm._ The less said about his people, the better. _No, I'm well enough, though I haven't had enough rest. And... it happened again._

He hadn't meant for that last bit to slip out. _It happened again._ Again he had been mistaken for an enemy, the sharp-eared greyskin lurking in someone's home. Again he was tormented by nightmares, fearful of the very people his life depended on.

_Was there ever a time when you weren't, Jorlan?_ she asked. Even in his mind, her voice had the same breathy softness it had in life.

In normal circumstances, he would have stabbed anyone who dared ask that of him. Instead he scrambled back onto the bed, clapping his hands to his temples. "Stop it," he said aloud in Undercommon. His voice was weaker than he expected. He summoned up his best "standing up to Ilvara" voice. "If we must have this conversation," he growled, "it's going to be on my terms."

Mavash made a curtsy, mockingly elaborate. "By all means, Lord Duskryn."

"I'm no lord," he muttered, clutching his pillow to his chest like a shield. He was the second son of the second priestess of House Duskryn -- last he checked, the ninth house of Menzoberranzan -- and the only title he'd ever been able to claim was _jabbuk_ , as guard captain of Velkynvelve. And that was gone now, too. 

A long silence stretched between them.

"I'm glad you're not ill," Mavash said, and probably meant it. 

It was hard when people were so gods-damned earnest about things. He had honed his mind into a weapon that could tear apart any subtle implication, any veiled jibe, any innuendo, and now he was faced with a group of facile do-gooders who just didn't _bother_ to lie, or give an ugly truth some flash. 

Jorlan looked to the wall again, allowing no distractions to his fevered mind. "What did Master Malkin say?"

Mavash twisted in place, looking unusually bashful. "I wanted to ask him if... if he might find a place for you above ground, where your skills might be of service."

_His skills._ His only skills were flattering people, and if that failed, murdering them. Slithering out of things, saving his own skin. 

"He seemed to think he could," Mavash continued. "Especially if you were interested in the path of a druid, or a ranger--"

"It's foolish. I was joking, when I spoke of rangers. Thinking of... well, never mind." He turned a feather from his pillow in his hand. "Can you imagine me, in your beloved Neverwinter Wood? I'd probably get mauled by a bear"--poor choice of words, that--"or eat a poisonous fruit and die clutching my gut." He shook his head. "I'm no druid. The closest I get to wilderness is the Darklake." And he wouldn't be getting very close to that any time soon. 

She put a hand on her hip. "Well, I _am_ a druid, and I can tell you that when I was in the Underdark, I couldn't find a single thing to eat, and I never knew if the water was safe to drink. I couldn't even summon up a magical berry, because the faerzress twisted all our magic. If it weren't for Umbra and Sarith, those first few days, I probably would have starved, or died of thirst." Softer, she added. "Both of those paths are, in a sense, about survival. About being rooted in a land that that is hostile to others, and that even you don't understand completely. A world that would kill you as soon as pillow your head." Her gaze grew wistful and distant.

She was thinking of Neverwinter Wood, he knew. Of that place she called home. A place she could go back to at any time -- all she had to do was reject this foolish plan to storm the Underdark and take on the fiends of the Abyss. 

But ever sarcastic, he added, "Alas, I don't think your Emerald Enclave has a Circle of Insufferable Sellswords for me to join."

Her lips curved into a crooked grin. "Don't give yourself that much credit. Most days you're moderately sufferable. But, I suppose, anyone could be taught." She winked at him, but then her tone grew more earnest. "Seriously, Jorlan. I think surviving -- in the Underdark, in drow society -- is something you're very good at."

_Surviving drow society._ Did anyone ever just _live_ there? Even the most powerful women, the high priestesses, always seemed to be fighting for their lives. Even Ilvara feared Asha might try to displace her, worried about the disgrace of being posted to Velkynvelve. Not that she ever shared as much with _him_ , but it was easy enough to read in her panicked orders, in the words pitched too-high, in how she reacted to the slightest barbs. 

Still, his anger flared at Mavash's words. "I abhor the insinuation"--and here he used his most erudite Undercommon vocabulary, the one thing he could hold over her--"that my motherland is something that needs to be survived." It was one thing to think it himself; it was another thing to be told that by a surface dweller who perpetually smelled of wet fur. 

She ducked her head. "Fair enough. I'm sure there's much about the drow I still don't know. But... I know they hurt you there, in more ways than one. I know you said you couldn't go back."

_Oloth plynn ilta!_ She never said anything outright against him and his people, just let him draw his own conclusions. He was good at hating, but it was impossible to hate her for that.

Mavash picked at the paint on the door, looking uncomfortable. But at length she said, "Anyway. My point is, each druid has their domain, their own area of expertise. For some it's the forest, for others the swamp, and so on. I grew up in the far northeast, where the ground is permanently frozen below a certain level, and when I first came to Neverwinter, I was amazed that trees could grow so tall." She concluded, "So why not the Underdark? It clearly has its roots in you."

But he was thinking of Mavash's roots, not his own. _The far northeast. Sossal._ There was little she would say of her birthplace, but he knew she had crossed Faerûn for her faith -- a calling, and distance, that Jorlan could scarcely comprehend. 

But that strange priestess of Shar had spoken of Mavash's connection to a place called "Aber," not of this world, and Jorlan knew there was more to her. Knew there was a reason her eyes sometimes glowed with an inner fire. Knew there was a reason that terrible insectile creature had targeted her, and it had something to do with why she sometimes talked to herself, hand to her heart. 

He gave a nervous laugh, belying his own turmoil. "We can talk about my future after we get back." _If_ we return. He almost prayed he didn't, so that he didn't have to have this conversation ever again. "But for now -- I hope all is decided? When are we leaving for Mantol-Derith?" He hoped his eagerness to return to the Underdark didn't show too keenly in his words. That was the sort of thing that would be used against him, back... home.

_You have no home,_ his thoughts mocked him. _No future. No past._

Mavash seated herself on the far end of the bed. She had produced a small box from the pouch at her waist, which she turned in her hand. "Not yet. There's still so much to decide, to organize."

"Was I not such a good little informant after all?" he said, his tone carefully lighthearted. It had stung, to be led around to those meetings like a pampered pet, to be called "spy" and "slave" and "prisoner" and worse. He'd gritted his teeth when Gaulir had needled him about his "conversion" to "the path of good"; he'd kept his opinions to himself about the cult of Eilistraee. 

Mavash shook her head. "It wasn't that at all. But organizing an army, even a small one, takes time. And our attentions have been diverted by the attack of the kalaraq quori."

A moment's mention, and Jorlan was there again.

* * *

He had been awakened from his trance by Mavash's screaming and the sound of falling bodies. When he emerged into the common room, he found Lux and Mavash in their sleepwear, menaced by an abomination with too many eyes and claws. On the floor was the body of their dwarven guard, split down the middle where the creature had shed him like a snake's skin. 

He hadn't planned to help them, at first. No one would notice if he slipped away, out of the reach of the terrible thing whose hunger to _possess_ rolled off it in waves.

But Jorlan saw an opening to slide into the shadows and dig his blades into its chitinous shell, and before he knew it, he was doing exactly that. Maybe it was his own vanity; maybe he didn't know how to walk away from an exposed back. 

His daggers sank into the creature, and then it turned to face him. A thousand eyes, shining with alien intelligence, reflected his own face. No time to back out.

And then there was the terrible moment when a swarm of insectile eyes engulfed him. He heard a thin keening, which he only distantly realized was his own scream. He was blinded, brought to his knees with pain. Into that, he had heard Mavash urging him to run; only later did he realize she wasn't speaking aloud. He thought he returned some message like, _I will try,_ but he didn't know how fast he could move when the whole world was dark.

_Like when daylight broke upon you, all over again_. There was nothing clarifying about this, however. No mercy would await him from this creature. It didn't just want to murder them, it wanted to obliterate their souls. Especially the one dwelling in Mavash.

He had managed to pull himself to the edge of the fray, behind the wall of his companions. He couldn't see; overlapping voices and the sounds of weapons filled his ears. He heard Eldeth's voice, her footsteps beside where he lay, and knew the dwarven woman would leave him to die; knew he might bleed out right here, not ten feet from his companions. 

He heard the dwarven woman clapping her hand to Lux's back, muttering a few words of healing. He heard the growl of Mavash-bear. And then Eldeth leaned down beside him, murmuring some words. The crushing pain in his chest ceased, and the burning in his eyes lessened. He still couldn't see, but at least he no longer felt near death. 

By then his companions had mostly torn the creature apart, and the air stank of blood and ichor. But he made a wild gambit -- showing off, maybe; tracking the creature by sound -- and threw one of his daggers into the melee. 

The screaming that erupted next was celebratory. His vision still clouded, Jorlan was only dimly aware he had dealt the killing blow. Later, he would find his own dagger embedded in one of the monster's eyes. 

His companions in the adjoining room -- Gaulir and Umbra and the duergar Rhonkar -- had faced much the same thing. There was a long discussion of What This Meant, all very boring. Master Malkin had appeared, and talked to Mavash of Destiny, and being a Chosen One, and tripe like that, and he could scarcely believe she was listening to him. When someone was flattering you like that, usually they were about to ask something terrible and deadly of you. Light, he'd used the same tactic a few times himself.

He had stayed quiet on the sidelines, cleaning his daggers, still blinking insect parts out of his eyes. 

* * *

Back in the present, Jorlan became aware that Mavash hadn't spoken for some time. He looked up to find her regarding him with that same furrowed brow. _You seem very far away today,_ she said into his mind, and ducked her head. A wash of color painted her pale cheeks like rouge. "I'm sorry. Sometimes it's just... easier."

It _was_ easier. He let his thoughts travel along that link, like spiders along the Silken Paths. _It's all right for now. I was just thinking about the battle with... that thing._

_Ah, yes._ She looked down at her hands. _I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you. If I shifted back, I could have restored your sight._

_That would have been foolish,_ he replied, and then, unbidden, the thought bubbled up, _I'm not worth the trouble_.

Mavash's eyes went round. "No!" she said, appalled. _It's not that. But every time I shift back, I'm especially vulnerable._ She gestured down at her humanoid form. Not feeble, but also not a cave bear.

_I would not expect you to put your safety above mine._ It had been dinned in his ear since he was a child-- _you are expendable._

Mavash smiled sadly. _You've spent a long time numbering your own worth, haven't you? But the way I see it, my job in a fight is to be the vanguard; to take the hits for the ones who are less able to. To stand between the enemy and you_.

_Are you so sure I'm not the enemy?_ Jorlan replied, seasoning the word-thought with a tickle of mirth.

She responded with blithe innocence, _What reason do you have to be my enemy? I spared your life. We've aided each other every day since then._

Before he could stop the thought, it slipped out: _You killed my lover._

She looked pained, and turned her head to avoid his gaze. _Yes. I wish it could have been otherwise. But you know she would not have shown us mercy._

That much was true. Ilvara, in a rage, had threatened that if the prisoners were killed before they reached Menzoberranzan, she'd personally resurrect them so that they could meet their fated end as sacrifices to Lolth. "Indeed," he said aloud, his voice jarringly loud in the silent room. 

_To be honest,_ Mavash began, her word-thoughts gentle, _I did not think you truly loved her. I expected you were using her, just as she was using you. And she'd already shown she was willing to throw you away--_

He closed down the telepathic link before his helpless thoughts betrayed him. How could he explain that the word they used so readily for "love" in Undercommon had no analogue in his native tongue? The closest was _ssinssrigg_ \-- which also meant "lust" and "greed."

He supposed he had been greedy. How else should he feel, when everything he'd ever been belonged to Ilvara? He was from one of the most powerful families in Menzoberranzan, but he hadn't been allowed to meet her gaze until she'd given him permission. He was nothing, less than nothing, without a powerful woman like her propping him up.

He settled for saying, at a whisper, "Things are very different with my people, I'm sure you know." His hands clenched around the pillow he still held.

Another long silence. At last, Mavash said, "Anyway. I knew the creature was weakening, and I knew I could cure your blindness after the fight. I'm only glad you were able to get to safety first."

Finger by finger, Jorlan made himself release his grip on the pillow. "I'm losing count of how many times I've been blinded while in your company," he mused.

"Should I take that as a compliment? Astounded by my natural charms, are you?" She batted her eyelashes, playing the coquette. It looked awkward on her earnest face.

He narrowed his eyes and curved his lips in a cunning smile. "I do enjoy the twigs in your hair and the perfume of bear musk. It's a... unique fashion." He never would have dared to tease a woman of Menzoberranzan like that, and the novelty of it was pleasing. "Sounds more like an omen to me. Or a metaphor for how you keep dragging me screaming into daylight."

She favored him with a smile. "To be fair, on the parapets of Mithril Hall, it was less a scream and more of a curse. What was it you said? Something something Susan?"

" _Ssussun pholor dos._ It's an oath -- it means 'light upon you.' " He made a huff of laughter. "Ironic, isn't it?"

She must be feeling pity for him, thinking _how terrible that you had never seen a sunset before._ He hated pity, and not wanting to see it in her eyes, he turned his gaze back to the wall.

Good old wall.

There was a rustling, and Mavash held out the box in her hand. "On that note... something I thought would help. The dwarves made it when they were making my pendant." She touched a hand to the gemstone at her neck. "I hope you won't hold it against me."

He opened the box revealing... what, precisely? A gift? 

He had given gifts to Ilvara, of course -- a pair of hairsticks, bone-white and chased with gold. Perfumes, scented oils for her bath, and more intimate things still. But as far as he could remember, no one had ever given _him_ a gift before.

He lifted the item from the box, inspecting it from every angle. It was some confection of steel wire and... obsidian?

"Smoked glass," she said, as if still witness to his thoughts. "You know what they are?"

The wires snapped open under his fingers, and he saw two lenses of glass, smoky grey. "Some sort of spectacles?"

"Just so!" Mavash beamed, clearly proud of her idea. "Sun spectacles, I call them. In my homeland they wear something of the sort to guard against snow-blindness." She gestured at the driftglobe lighting the room. "I know how the light hurts you, and I know we've got a week's journey overland to Mithril Hall ahead of us, so I thought this would help."

He stared at the spectacles for a long, long time. Finally he folded the wires down and placed them back in the box. "Once I go back to the Underdark, I don't think I'll be returning here again."

Mavash's gaze flicked from his face to the spectacles as she bit her lip. "What will you do in the Underdark?"

"As Umbra so rightly pointed out... I have many friends there." _Well..._ "Contacts. Assets. Whatever. I'll figure something out once we're done with- with the demon threat." 

It was bravado, and he knew it. But what else did he have, any more?

"You know," she said, twisting the linen of her skirt between her fingers, "You could stay here, afterwards. Not Gauntlgrym, I mean, but on the surface. The Sword Coast. I would- I would welcome you in Neverwinter Wood. In my home."

He tried to ignore the invitation in those words, the warmth and homeliness of them. She needed to stop trying to convince him that the world was all goodness and light. If she only knew him better -- knew what he had done to survive -- it would chill the goodness right out of her. 

"You could, of course," he rejoined, "stay in the Underdark."

One corner of her mouth quirked up, somewhere between a smile and surprise. "What, and have you show me around Menzoberranzan? I doubt they'd like me very much there. Especially after I ruined their sacrifice."

He curved his own lips in a humorless smile. "And they like me _so_ much here." He still hadn't told her about the guard patrol he'd run into. But what was the point? It was over now, and only his pride had been hurt. Right?

Gently, she added, "But you have to admit that dwarves don't feed people they don't like to spiders."

_No, they just throw them in magma. Much better._

He picked up the spectacles again, the smoked glass catching the light. It wasn't the baroque inutility of in drow craftsmanship; these were sturdy and yet flexible, beautifully uncomplicated. He had to admit it was well suited to a functional piece like this. He opened the arms of the spectacles and set them on his nose, looping the wires behind his ears.

The light in the room dimmed a fraction, and he released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. 

Mavash reached across the bed and took his hand, giving an encouraging squeeze. Her skin stood out in sharp contrast to his, milk white against ash grey. "Look, we have no idea what the future holds. We might be here another day, or another month. For all I know, we might not make it out of the Underdark again. But for now... I wanted to make things a little easier for you. You know?"

He didn't know. Not at all. But he wanted to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm moving towards putting my extensive "I talk too much and think I'm too clever" end notes in a fanfic journal. So if you want to read more about the differences from the RAW adventure, or all the research I did into Drow linguistics, [hie yourself to my blog.](http://www.lisefrac.net/log/fanfic-journal-bright-future-chapter-1/)


	2. Og'elend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kinyel murdered you and I had to watch, petrified, as life left your eyes._
> 
> The heroes of Velkynvelve and their semi-willing drow defector Jorlan Duskryn arrive in Mantol-Derith to find assassins on the loose, mad beholders, insanity-causing gems, and creepy-but-well-meaning Zhentarim. A battle goes very badly, bringing into sharp relief certain emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect this to have a chapter two, but we had a really epic last session, and here we are. This one's from Mavash's POV, although you can bet that I have an entire chapter three of emo!Jorlan in progress. 
> 
> Spoilery through Mantol-Derith, although I've elided most of the pesky plot details because they weren't relevant to elf fancying. If you are reading this as an accurate narrative of the RAW module, I am so, so sorry.

" _Aa, ol zhah l'og'elend Jorlan Duskyn,_ " the drow named Zilchyn snarled as they passed. He spit on the ground at his feet, a gesture that needed no translation.

Jorlan's gaze swept over the other man's body, his lip curling in disgust. " _Vlos'calin har'shebali_."

Mavash and her companions were in the Zhentarim Enclave of Mantol-Derith. As soon as they'd heard from Peebles about the meeting, they'd come running, stopped only briefly by the Zhentarim guards, who relented at seeing Ana'Ise. The city was a powder keg, and at the moment, it looked like the epicenter of the blast would be here, in front of Ghazrim duLoc's house. The square was crowded with drow and duergar, all shouting about stolen gems and beholders -- and the Zhentarim enforcers, anxiously shifting in their armor.

Currently, Ana'Ise was trying to convince the duergar Amarith Coppervein that the Zhentarim's pet beholder was perfectly sane, thank you very much, and no, the Zhentarim knew nothing of this magical gem. But the snakes of her hair, writhing behind her black veil, did little to inspire trust. 

_That's the Zhentarim, all right,_ Mavash mused. _Your creepy friends who get things done._ She'd never forget how she'd had an entire conversation with a faceless suit of armor in Gauntlgrym. 

Moments ago, Umbra had melted into the shadows, heading to the north through a secret door she'd revealed. Through their mind link, she told Mavash, _It's a drow woman. I think it's the one Peebles mentioned -- Kinyel._

A master assassin, according to Jorlan. _The Great Houses use her as a weapon against their enemies. Her strikes are precise, surgical. Far cleaner than all-out warfare._

_Don't overextend yourself,_ Mavash warned, but Umbra had already moved out of range of her telepathy. 

Ana'Ise was offering to the crowd that she and her companions would go check on Lorthuun, the beholder. Gaulir stepped in line behind her. Looking back between her companions and the crowd, Mavash decided to follow, too.

"I'll stay here," Jorlan said, crossing his arms and fixing his eyes on Zilchyn.

"Stay good, Jorlan," Mavash whispered, touching a hand to his arm. She didn't really expect him to start a brawl in the middle of this crowd, but he had been... unsettled ever since arriving in Mantol-Derith. Especially since finding out about Zilchyn Q'leptin and Kinyel Dru'giir. 

She couldn't blame him -- word had to have reached Menzoberranzan by now that the high priestess of Velkynvelve had been killed, and that her captain of the guard had not been found. Mavash didn't expect the drow to have a generous interpretation of Jorlan's disappearance.

Catching up with Gaulir, Mavash asked, "What did they say to each other?"

"Hm?" The dragonborn looked up at her. 

"Zilchyn and Jorlan. You had Ana'Ise's spell, didn't you?" In the Eastern Marketplace, the yuan-ti wizard had cast a spell on Gaulir to allow him to understand any language. As of yet, the dragonborn was unwilling or unable to learn Undercommon. 

"Oh. Just name calling. Zilchyn said something like, 'So, it's the traitor Jorlan Duskryn,' and Jorlan called him..." He furrowed his scaly brow. "I think it translates to something like 'blood-sucking commoner.'"

Mavash made a huff of laughter. "He seemed to think Zilchyn was lowborn." Even in disgrace, Jorlan wouldn't let them forget he was from a powerful family, once part of the Council, the eight ruling houses of Menzoberranzan. _Eight. Because spiders. Of course._

Even knowing that about Zilchyn was useful information; a lowborn male wouldn't be put in charge of the Drow Enclave of Mantol-Derith. Which meant Kinyel was the real power here.

A cry of surprise from ahead caught Mavash's attention. Ana'Ise was bent down beside two bodies; both wore the distinctive Zhentarim armor. The yuan-ti turned to Mavash and Gaulir, and in her whispery voice, said, "Tend to them. I will see to Lorthuun."

Gaulir arrived first, kneeling to examine the bodies. After too short a time, he rose, giving a shake of his head. "They've been dead for at least a few minutes." Unsaid was: _too long to be revivified._

"The assassin," Mavash said, suddenly understanding why Kinyel had been _leaving_ the Enclave. She'd thought at first the assassin was just trying to get behind them. 

She hoped Umbra was keeping her distance...

At the same moment, Ana'Ise's voice came from inside, calm and yet pained. "Lorthuun's dead."

* * *

The next beholder they met was definitely not dead.

They had followed Umbra through the passageway to the north, catching up to Kinyel on the shores of the Darklake. Of course, she wasn't alone; she had the company of five gargoyles and a very healthy-looking beholder. In fact this beholder seemed to have a few extra eyestalks grafted onto its body. Mavash wouldn't be surprised to learn they had belonged to Lorthuun. 

The svirfneblin Peebles was there, too. "Bastard sold us out," Jimjar muttered. 

This was, in Mavash's professional opinion, looking very bad. 

The next few moments passed in a blur. Looking back, Mavash wasn't entirely able to reconstruct the events in order. 

She definitely had summoned an earth elemental -- so why was it attacking them? 

She remembered the exhilarating feeling of changing into a new form -- the cat-like creature called a moorbounder, with tusks like a boar and sharp spines down its back. The sudden freedom of the wildshape was intoxicating like wine, and in her zeal she leapt into battle. Gaulir called after her, and guiltily she remembered she should have waited for his blessing.

She recalled the foul taste of beholder flesh in her mouth, and how it felt when the gargoyle's stone teeth bit into her side.

She remembered Jimjar racing for the water's edge, towards the wagon where Peebles had sheltered. She recalled the two deep gnomes wrestling one another across the sand. 

She remembered the beholder casting its gaze over the length of the shoreline, and magic... vanishing. She remembered how the Eldritch Windstone had sat like a dead thing around her neck, more noose than jewelry.

She recalled seeing Jorlan running -- away, she thought, at first. Though it saddened her, she couldn't blame him. This was far above his paygrade. 

But no, he had run _towards_ the shore, where Kinyel had last been seen. As he ghosted into the shadows, Mavash realized he was _hunting_ the assassin.

No, that wasn't right. He had already killed Kinyel, putting a dagger through her eye. Or... was that the fight with the kalaraq quori? That was it, wasn't it?

Wait, no... had she watched him die? He had died, hadn't he? 

Oh, Vash, _he had died._

She remembered the moment one of the beholder's eyestalks had pivoted towards her, and the sickening green ray it had emitted. The feeling that came over her was... odd. One minute she felt she might vomit; next, all her muscles seized at once, her skin turning a dark grey.

She was being turned to stone.

Restrained, she'd watched helplessly as Kinyel appeared from the shadows and driven her blades, one after the other, into Jorlan's back, running him through. He fell to his knees and then to the ground, sliding off the blades. His terrible grimace of pain and shock was etched as an afterimage into Mavash's mind.

She had watched as Kinyel drove her blades again and again into Jorlan's unconscious form. She didn't just want to neutralize him; she wanted him dead.

As far as Mavash knew, she succeeded.

Mavash remembered feeling very, very far away, like in a dream. And just like waking up from a night terror, she was paralyzed, unable to act, barely able to breathe or think. What she saw made her sick with fear, but she couldn't remember why. 

She became aware of a blur at the edge of her vision -- Gaulir, moving faster than she'd ever seen the dragonborn move. He kneeled down beside Jorlan, searching his body. Why was he doing that? What violation was this? 

But the red dragon Vaeros was there now, too, as was Umbra's shadow hound. Together they surrounded Kinyel, cutting off her escape.

Next Mavash knew, Jorlan was standing. Clutching his side, weaving like a drunkard, but alive. A brief luff of hope moved through Mavash's stony body. 

She watched him slide a rag across his blade and lunge for Kinyel. 

Flanked by the rest of their companions, the assassin had nowhere to dodge, and Jorlan's short sword and dagger sunk into her back. Kinyel looked over her shoulder, trading her look of surprise for the one she had taken from Jorlan. He had smiled wickedly and said, " _Illythiiri elg'cahl._ "

Kinyel went down just as abruptly as he had, her face purpled with poison.

A hand touched Mavash's flank. Like a clock hand restrained and now released, time caught up to her. She fell to the ground, her feral throat emitting mewling cat noises. 

After taking several panting breaths, she looked up. The beholder was down, and Gaulir was... rummaging through its innards? That seemed gruesome for the paladin. The gargoyles, seeing their allies defeated, were fleeing. 

Ambergris was standing over Mavash, looking concerned. Mavash met the dwarf woman's eye and nodded, a mute gesture of gratitude.

Jorlan made his way to Mavash's side. He was covered in blood -- impossible to tell how much of it was his own -- and he limped more than ran. There was a torn and bloody hole through his doublet, marking where a sword had passed through him. But still his first concern was: "Are you well?"

Mavash dropped her beast form and pulled Jorlan into an embrace, burying her face in the crook of his neck. She remembered at the last minute how incredibly _small_ he was -- at least a foot shorter than her, and little more than half her weight -- and refrained from dragging him off his feet. 

At first he flinched at her touch -- surprise? pain? disgust? But he relaxed and leaned into the gesture, exhaling a ragged sigh into her hair.

"I was so worried..." she whispered in his ear. The overpowering old-coin smell of his blood stung her nostrils. She wanted to cry out, _Kinyel murdered you and I had to watch, petrified, as life left your eyes._ But--

" _Where_ is the gem of Frazz-Urb'luu?" came a voice over Mavash's shoulder. She whirled in time to see the duergar Amarith Coppervein appear. 

... and, just as quickly, the duergar woman melted into the form of a succubus. One they had last seen in Gracklstugh, charming the Deep King. 

"My master, Grazzt, has sent me to parley."

* * *

It was finished. One lord of the Abyss down, seven left to go. 

There was much work to do, curing the madness that the gem had wrought on so many residents of Mantol-Derith. The duergar wanted an explanation for the disappearance of Amarith Coppervein. Same, really, with the svirfneblin and Peebles. 

And Zilchyn was still alive, glaring daggers at Jorlan. 

At the moment, all Mavash wanted to do was sleep.

They followed Ana'Ise to rooms the Zhentarim had laid out for them. Along the way, Mavash turned to Jorlan. "Interesting enough for you yet?" She was thinking of their conversation in Gauntlgrym, about why he was following them. _Because you are interesting and powerful._

Between Gaulir and Mavash, they had been able to heal the worst of his wounds, but Jorlan looked asleep on his feet. "Mmm. I'd settle for some quiet right about now."

She picked up the thought she'd been in the midst of when the succubus had interrupted them. "I was so afraid you were going to die," she murmured, and added, with a sad laugh, "I suppose you did." When her senses had returned, she'd realized that Gaulir had been able to revivify him, using the diamonds they'd each carried just for this purpose. That explained why the dragonborn was rifling through his pockets.

Jorlan looked into the distance, a thin smile painting his lips. Blood had dried in his pale hair, glinting like rubies in the flickering light. "I thought you were going to say you were afraid I'd bolt."

"Well, that too, at first. One, then the other."

Almost imperceptibly, Jorlan flinched, and Mavash realized she had said the wrong thing.

She lowered her head. "I'm sorry. It's not that I don't trust you. It's just that I expected any sane person to run under those circumstances. Especially someone who's survived as long as you."

Jorlan made no reply, his gaze fixed on his boots.

After an awkward silence, she continued, "What you did to Kinyel... that was impressive." She heard awe creeping into her voice, and did nothing to suppress it.

"Nobody stabs me and gets away with it." Jorlan pointed his head towards Umbra and Luxan, walking ahead of them. "And to think, they didn't want to give me those poisoner's kits. "

"Thank you," Mavash whispered. There was a lump in her throat, and a certainty that whatever she said would be inadequate. "Your assistance--you--are invaluable."

He inspected his hands, still caked with blood. His face was an unreadable mask. "I'm just a male."

Mavash opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a deep sigh. She wished she could put a hand to his head and melt away all that self-loathing he'd acquired from a lifetime of being _less-than_ \-- remove it as easily as Ambergris had cured her petrification. 

Words were harder than magic, though.

Gaulir spoke from behind them, breaking the silence. "You are more than that. We are all pleased to call you friend." He clapped a hand on Jorlan's shoulder, making the drow jump. 

They had reached their lodgings, individual rooms in a long building. Ana'Ise pointed out whose was whose, and told them where to fetch more water, and then headed back to the heart of the complex.

Mavash's room was next to Jorlan's, and they both lingered in the space between. The ground beneath them was covered with a filament-like glowing fungi that reminded her of grass. She bent and broke one off in her hand, letting it rest in her palm.

"K'lavulin," he said. When Mavash looked up at him, he indicated the mushroom. "That's its name. Don't eat it."

"Deadly?" she asked. Crouching down, she could actually look up at him -- a rare sensation. 

His eyes narrowed in something like mirth, long white lashes closing over red eyes. "No. But it tastes like ash."

"That was... not the word I thought you were going to say," she laughed, and impulsively, put the mushroom on her tongue.

It tasted like charcoal, and worse, it crumbled in her mouth and coated her tongue with fur. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her retch, but she couldn't help it. It was every bit as awful as he had implied. 

Still coughing, Mavash managed to choke out, "Well, will it make me glow?"

Laughing, he said, " _Waela jalil._ " He looked surprised at the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, making Mavash suspect it was something he wouldn't say to a drow matron. "Don't they have mushrooms in Neverwinter Woods? You don't just _eat_ one."

Mavash wiped at her mouth, nodding. As a druid, she knew all sorts of facts about mushrooms. About mycelium and fruiting bodies and spores. About their symbiosis with certain trees. Which ones in the Neverwinter Wood were good to eat and which would make you sick. While it wasn't quite as dire as Jorlan painted it -- you _did_ sometimes put pieces on on your tongue to identify them by taste and smell -- she wouldn't normally gobble down a whole one she had never seen before. 

And yet: "Maybe I just did it to make you smile."

And he _was_ smiling. For now, at least. Sadness was creeping back into his eyes, though, as inexorable as sunset.

Or if not sadness, then pain or regret or... what, she didn't know. There was so much going on behind the armor of that tight, closed-mouth smile. 

She realized, of a sudden, that sometime in the past month it had become supremely important to see him smile -- that she would do almost anything to eke one out of him. 

But not tonight. He'd died today; he deserved a break from her relentless cheer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Read more about the party composition, Drow morphology, and height differences on my fanfic journal!](http://www.lisefrac.net/log/fanfic-journal-bright-future-chapter-2/)


	3. Streea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> " _I don't want to do this,_ part of his mind screamed. And yet he found himself turning the poisoned drink in his hand, contemplating it like some fine vintage. _It is time,_ another voice insisted. _Do this on your own terms. Do this before you become someone worth missing._ "
> 
> Jorlan Duskryn, branded a traitor, learns that dying and being revivified is hard on the psyche. A certain druid manages to prevent a fatal decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still in Mantol-Derith, so this is no more spoilery than last chapter. 
> 
> Please enjoy too-many-thousand-words of emo Jorlan maunderings, with some content warnings: suicidal ideation (as the aftereffects of a Revivify spell) and mentions of what is, frankly, past sexual assault. Because drow are terrible, is why. 
> 
> This is creeping into more romance-y territory at an infinitesimally slow pace.

Once the door to his room had closed behind him, Jorlan shot the bolt and slumped down against the zurkhwood frame.

Words echoed in his head. _Og'elend,_ first among them. _Traitor_. He had known he would be branded that the moment he'd chosen to live and follow the prisoners to the surface. So why did Zilchyn's casual use of it tear through him as viciously as Kinyel's blades? 

Maybe because in Menzoberranzan, at the height of his power, the matron mother of his house would have flayed alive anyone who dared insult even her sons. 

And now? He imagined Ilharess Prae'anelle hearing the news of his defection from one of her scouts in the Upper Dark. She would keep it to herself, like an embarassing illness. No one else in the house would know -- not his relations, not the Duskryn bondsfolk -- let alone a leech like Zilchyn. 

But eventually, she would confirm the news, and the rumors would boil over. She would need to make a statement, and she would not hesitate in making it. 

Once it came time to cut, she would cut Jorlan mercilessly out of the family, out of the house, out of Illythiiri society. She would tear his likeness out of portraits; efface his name from the family shrine. She would set alight the web of his life and make it like he had never lived. _He should have never been born,_ he imagined her saying. _I should have exposed him as an infant._

He couldn't find it in himself to argue. 

Interesting word, _og'elend_. In Undercommon, it translated into two different words. "Traitor," yes, but the other one was "heretic." Fundamentally, _og'elendar_ meant "opposition to Lolth's will." 

And he'd been in opposition to _Quarvalsharess_ since the day he decided not to give his life foolishly to save Ilvara's. Or longer -- maybe since he opened that prison door. 

Which meant his continued existence was dire to his matron mother, and to the status of House Duskryn. His disfavor would visit disfavor upon them; he was anathema to everyone he ever met. Maybe even the so-called "heroes of Velkynvelve." 

_Especially_ them, wasting one of those diamonds on his wretched life. 

He found his hands were shaking, and clutched them to his sides. He was absolutely covered in blood, drying tacky on his skin and clothes in that way that only blood could. It didn't matter whose any more, but he suspected it was mostly his own. Fitting, really, since he'd been the architect of his own fall. 

He raised his head to look around the room, ashamed at his reverie.

Steam was rising from a basin, which the yuan-ti woman had enchanted to stay warm. Clean towels and a bar of soap sat beside it, inviting in their homeliness. Jorlan's small bundle of belongings -- a few clothes, and whatever equipment his traveling companions had given him -- sat in a corner. The bed was clean and made, and the whole room smelled of fragrant mushrooms.

He unbuckled his sword belt and tossed his short sword and dagger onto the floor, making a smear of dark red against the zurkhwood. Better that than the bed, he supposed. His doublet came off next, sticking to the site of his mortal wound. His companions had put enough healing into him to make him dizzy, but still the skin there, just below his sternum, was tender. He poked at it experimentally. Hard to believe that he'd been pieced back together so easily -- _and yet so expensively_ \-- heart and lungs and guts mended as smoothly as flesh. When he tossed the doublet aside, it was so wet with his blood that it slopped against the floor.

The rest of his clothes and his hidden weapons joined the pile, and soon he was standing over the basin, trying to scrub the blood from his hair and face and under his nails and all the places he never imagined blood could get. He imagined the bathhouse of the Duskryn house -- the water luxuriously hot, steam rising in curlicues, a beautiful slave massaging his back with perfumed oils -- and gave a bitter laugh. _How far you have fallen, Jorlan._

A pile of wet, bloody towels and several changes of water later, he was passably clean. He changed into a pair of loose trousers, and regarded the pile of bloody clothes on the floor. He couldn't imagine even the best laundress or tailor putting them back together. 

There was a shard of mirror hung above the wash basin, probably for the hairier races to shave. He pulled it down and seated himself on the edge of the bed, using it to see while he sponged blood out of his hairline. 

He held the mirror at arm's length, inspecting his work. The water and towel were already so bloodied that his efforts left pink streaks in his white hair. He frowned at that, thinking it was the sort of thing a drow woman would probably have found appealing. Ilvara, for example, would have--

He tossed the mirror aside, sighing. He knew already what it had to tell him. He was attractive enough, by drow standards. He hardly would have survived his first hundred years if he didn't know how to use that to his advantage. _Ssinss_ , the one little power allowed him. 

(Why did he find himself thinking, suddenly, of what was considered attractive in _kalashtar_ culture?)

Why else had he drawn Shoor into that ambush that had left the other man scarred? Jorlan had sought to eliminate a possible rival, but he'd miscalculated. Ilvara hadn't seen it as Shoor's weakness, but his willingness to sacrifice himself for her, his commitment to _streea_ \--

Now _that_ was a word that cut through him, more than _traitor_. _Death in the service of Lolth._

That word his continued existence revolved upon.

That word that had been on Kinyel's lips as she stood over his bleeding-out body. _If you had given yourself in_ streea, _it wouldn't have come to this. You would be a hero in Menzoberranzan._

She was right -- especially if his sacrifice had somehow, against all logic, saved Ilvara's life. Instead of cutting him out of family portraits, his matron mother would have made sacrifices in his name. House Duskryn would rise in the favor of Lolth, and thus might rise among the Great Houses. 

But for all that he'd be a hero, he'd still be _dead_. He couldn't see past that wall that bookended his life. He couldn't see past the vision of his body cooling on the floor of that cave in the Upper Dark, the lights of phosphorescent fungi blinking out as his eyes and his mind and his heart stopped responding. It filled his chest with a cold stone of fear that he would do anything to avoid.

And yet, that was precisely what had happened today. 

The pain had been the least of his worries. It had happened so quickly -- and Kinyel's blades were so sharp -- that the first thing he became aware of was being bludgeoned from behind. When he'd looked down and seen a blade protruding from his chest, glistening with his own blood -- that was when the fear had struck him. He was no physicker, but he knew that was no wound a mortal could survive. Already he could not draw a breath, and a bloody froth filled his mouth. 

But then Kinyel had removed her blades, and he'd fallen to the floor, and _that_ was when the pain hit. That was when he tasted the poison in his mouth. One he knew the name of, but suddenly couldn't recall. His face rested against the cool ground, and it felt like a relief.

Until Kinyel stood over him, pulling his head up by the hair, and said what she said. _I do you a mercy by killing you, Duskryn,_ she had finished. _I pray this kindness won't be my weakness._ That was the last thing he recalled.

(By Mavash's recounting, she'd followed that up by stabbing him repeatedly -- heart, gut, eye -- because she wanted to make sure he was really, truly dead).

The next thing he knew, he was waking up, face to face with a dragon. No, not a dragon, a dragonborn -- the paladin Gaulir. He felt for the diamond he wore around his neck, and found it gone, the cord snapped. Gaulir opened his hand, and specks of diamond dust had fallen onto Jorlan's chest. 

What a waste of three hundred gold coins. 

He didn't want to die, but he felt like every sign was telling him he should no longer be alive. Why fight his fate? Every breath he took after the ambush in the Upper Dark had been at someone else's expense. The only way to be solvent was to pay that coin with his life, as he'd been meant to do from the start. 

To do been what had prescribed for him his whole life. The thing he had gone to the Melee-Magthere to learn how to do. 

_To be expendable._

Jorlan rose and went to his pack, removing the two tin boxes his traveling companions had given him. It had been some housekeeping on Gaulir's part -- wanting to clean out the bag of holding they'd been using since Velkynvelve. It had been a shock to Jorlan when he'd removed things he'd remembered, like the gourd of poison he'd last seen sitting near the altar to Lolth, or Ilvara's tentacle rod. 

Giving him these boxes had occasioned some debate, but here they were. Without them, he couldn't have avenged himself on Kinyel. 

He set them on the bed, examining the contents. These had been kept in one of the guard towers at Velkynvelve, but they hadn't been collated by him. Each compartment would have been an indistinguishable mass of grey lumps, save for the labels written in a neat hand. Shoor's, maybe, or someone under Jorlan's command. 

He touched a finger to the one he had used to make his blade poison. Timmask -- identifiable, even in its dried state, by its bright red cap. 

Most of these were used for blade poisons -- things that would weaken the enemy, cloud their mind, or make them bleed out faster. Any drow who wielded a blade had learned to use these. But ingested poisons were subtler, and tended to be the domain of matron mothers and house agents, looking to eliminate rivals silently. And, of course, less likely to be found in a poisoner's kit out of the guard station of Velkynvelve.

Jorlan did recognize one or two -- the sort of things he'd learned to watch out for, as the child of a noble house. (He was a son, and not directly in the line of inheritance, but as the matron mother had reminded him, he could still be used as a pawn). One was a sort of lichen, compressed and dried into grey-green pellets. _Tears of the Hated Mother_ , he'd heard it called. The weapon of the secret moondancers, the cult of Eilistraee. 

He found a dusty glass beside the basin, and filled it from his wineskin. He'd tasted wine for the first time in Gauntlgrym, and didn't care for it -- it tasted like something a shrieker might vomit up. But Mavash had insisted he take the wineskin -- _a reminder of the surface. A drink of pure sunlight. And,_ she'd added impishly, _in a pinch, a disinfectant._

He took a long, fortifying swig, grimacing at the taste. Then, before he lost his nerve, he chose two of the pellets and dropped them into the cup.

 _I don't want to do this,_ part of his mind screamed. And yet he found himself turning the poisoned drink in his hand, contemplating it like some fine vintage. _It is time,_ another voice insisted. _Do this on your own terms. Do this before you become someone worth missing._

He opened his mouth in surprise at that last thought.

* * *

He heard a door slamming, and then, a frantic pounding on his own door. _Mavash_. "Go to bed," he croaked, and clutched the glass tighter. 

Another rattle of the door. "Open the door, Jorlan." It was a voice that brooked no nonsense. _Ssussun_ , but she had missed her calling as a matron mother. 

He set the glass down beside the basin, and rose, sighing. "I'll be back," he murmured to the glass, and unbolted the door.

Mavash pushed her way in. She was in her chemise, one of the green blankets from the bed wrapped around her like a dressing gown. Her hair was loose and messy. "I had a nightmare," she said.

Jorlan slumped back on his bed, trying to feign having been awakened from deep slumber. The candle still burning did rather belie that claim, though. "I thought you didn't dream."

"I don't. But it _is_ how Vash--" Her eyes flicked over the room, finally coming to rest on Jorlan, with the hint of a smile. 

It occurred to him she'd never seen him shirtless before. And what was his body but a sharp weapon, honed by hunger and constant flight?

Perversely, his mind supplied, _Like what you see?_ He leaned back on his arms, savoring her gaze. Perhaps he could defuse this a different way; a way he was all too familiar with. 

He looked up at her through his lashes, pitched his voice lower, and said, "Perhaps you need a companion to keep your nightmares at bay?"

Mavash shook her head, dispelling the thought. "It was a vision. I saw you were in danger." She was examining the corner of the room now, avoiding looking at him. A blush showed on her pale cheeks.

"As you can see"--he waved expressively--"I am well. And not covered in blood." He cocked his head. "I didn't think that would be something you would fancy. Although..." He raised his poisoned glass. "Join me for a drink? The last taste of the grapes of the surface. Though you'll need to bring your own glass."

She bit her lip, looking up at the ceiling. "Jorlan, shut up and let me think."

"As you wish," molding his voice into an obeisance that any priestess would cherish. 

He felt the subtle tremor in his hands as he picked up the drink. Was he brave enough to drink it while she was here? And why not? By the time she realized he was poisoned, it would be too late. 

He remembered the stony face of the house agent who had taught him how to recognize the poison. Young Jorlan had asked how quickly the poison acted. _It is... efficacious,_ the man had replied. 

Mavash gave up whatever she'd been pondering with a heavy sigh. She crossed to the bed and sat down heavily beside Jorlan, the poisoner's kit between them. "It's not like my quori"--she touched her hand to her chest--"to alarm me with no reason. That troubles me more than anything."

He raised a hand to brush a piece of errant hair behind her ear, letting the back of his hand trail down her neck. It was more forward than he would normally be -- but then, his forwardness here wouldn't lead to him being flayed alive. "I'm glad you're here, nonetheless," he murmured. 

She caught his hand halfway to her shoulder, her eyes narrowing. "You're behaving strangely." Nonetheless, she entwined her fingers with his. 

"Doesn't it please you?" he said, practicing a breathy tone. "I know we've danced around this, Mavash, but this is what you're after, isn't it?" He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed the back of it, his eyes not leaving hers. 

He felt very far away, like he watching someone else pilot his own body. Like he was acting out something by rote that he should enjoy, but couldn't feel anything from. _Like it so often was with Ilvara, letting her use my body while I was somewhere else._

Mavash's throat bobbed as she swallowed. "No," she said, her voice firm, but scarcely above a whisper. "I know what you're trying to do. But-- you don't need to act like this with me. I'm not--"

Her thoughts suddenly burst into his mind. _I'm not someone you need to charm, or seduce. And I think you know that. So now I'm wondering what your game is._

He looked away, as if breaking her gaze would break the telepathic link. He snatched up the poisoned wine, lifted it to his lips--

Mavash yanked the glass from his hands and threw it against the far wall. It smashed into a hundred diamond shards, and the wine dripped like blood down the zurkhwood panels.

Jorlan, his hand still molded to the shape of the glass, looked up. Rage replaced fear, like a thousand spiders biting him. "How dare you," he growled, grabbing for her hands. 

She snapped her hands away, taking up the poisoner's kit between them and slamming the lid closed. "You don't even like wine. Do you think I'm a fool?"

"Get out," he said, and pointed to the door. His weapons were far away, but he was ready to lunge for them. Only his years of self-preservation in a matriarchy restrained him from violence. 

Mavash steadfastly refused to move. "I don't know what was in that drink, but I know there aren't any blades around here that need poisoning." She gestured to his pile of bloodied weapons. "And I know distraction when I see it." She gave him a sad smile, shaking her head. "I think I understand why Umbra didn't want you to have these. She wasn't afraid of you murdering us in our beds. She was afraid of you offing yourself."

"Do you have any idea," he began, his voice cold, "what it's like to die?"

She looked at up him, her eyes wide, her expression open. "No. I don't."

He couldn't meet her gaze now, and his throat felt thick with raw, restrained emotion. "It's nothing at all." Those moments he'd been dead, a moment or a year might have passed. If he hadn't already doubted the faith of the Spider Queen, he did after that, seeing that he wasn't thrust into some afterlife where he was tortured for her pleasure. 

Honestly, the nothingness of it chilled him more than an eternity of torment.

As if intuiting his thoughts, Mavash said into his mind, _You truly hadn't passed beyond the veil yet. After a minute or so, it's too late by the means we used, and one must dedicate more... effort to the endeavor._

He gave a bitter laugh. "More diamonds, you mean." He tried a different tack, continuing telepathically, _Do you have any idea what it's like to have the value of your life numbered like that?_

But no, she did. Mavash touched the diamond that she, too, wore on a cord at her neck. Even though she'd taken off the Eldritch Windstone for the night, that gem still rested at the base of her throat, a glittering ward against assassins in the night. 

Of a sudden, Jorlan felt like he was waking from a dream. His anger melted away, replaced by an exhausted sort of shame. Ashamed of his cowardice. Ashamed of how he had tried to charm his one friend just so that she wouldn't notice him poisoning himself. "Why-- how--" he tried to croak out. When words didn't come, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and cradled his head in his hands. 

He felt Mavash's hand on his back, rubbing comforting circles. _Why don't you let me in, Jorlan?_ she said into his mind, the gentlest of whispers.

 _I let you in all the time,_ he shot back. She knew more of him than _anyone_ ever had. She knew enough to ruin him eight times over in Menzoberranzan. Everything he had told her was a weapon she could use against him. That she _would_ use against him, inevitably. 

Why was it not enough? When would it ever be enough? Did she want to completely break him?

 _You know,_ she said, _this is exactly what they want._

He raised his head, furrowing his brows in a question. _'They?'_

Mavash waved a hand vaguely. _The priestesses. The matriarchs. Probably even your spider goddess. They want you to destroy yourself, so they don't have to do it._ She gave a secretive smile. _So they don't have to send favored daughter assassins after you._

He chuckled. _I won't flatter myself to think Kinyel was here for me._ Although he couldn't deny that if the ninth house Duskryn fell in Lolth's esteem, the tenth house Dru'giir would rise. _But... you're right, of course. Ilvara always was lazy as well as hateful._

Her fingers ghosted over his shoulders, to the scars there. They gave a nervy jolt, and Jorlan flinched, as much from the sensation as from the memory of how he'd acquired them.

_Is this why you started when I hugged you?_

Oh, that. _I'll point out you were_ still _an extremely large cat when you leaped towards me._

She lowered her head in a gesture of embarrassment. _Ah, sorry. I forgot. It's easy to get caught up in the wildshape. You're lucky I didn't lick your face._ Curious, she bent to the side to get a better look at the scars. 

He knew what she would see there; he'd spent many hours examining them in a mirror, seeing if they were as wide as they felt under his fingertips. They were ropes of pinkish-pale flesh against his ashy skin, and they curled around the area where his neck met his shoulder. They were hard to see with a shirt on, but impossible to avoid without. _Which was kind of the point._

"These don't look so old. Are they--"

Out of instinct, he pulled away. Then, remembering her request -- _let me in_ \-- he exhaled sharply, and tried to relax. "When Ilvara found out I was the one who opened the prison door, she... well." He winced. "It is not as bad as it looks. She mostly wanted to mark me. The tentacle rod can leave nasty scars, but it's... not fatal. And she wanted me alive to, well, find the lot of you." He gestured at Mavash. 

He left out mention of how painful it was; how he could feel his flesh necrotizing from the venom, and how that knowledge was more terrible than the pain. How that was _still_ not worse than the fact Ilvara was _kissing_ him the whole time she was doing this, the venomous limbs climbing over his shoulder while her teeth drew blood. How he cried out; how, with her mouth on his, she had savored his torment. How she was punishing him for breaking her favorite toy--Shoor, who had died in the demon attack, spitted on a chasme's stinger. 

How all he could think, the whole time was, _this is better than I dared hope._

Mavash must have read some part of that on his face, or in his mind, because her whole face had gone even paler than it was naturally, and she clenched her fists in her lap. _Ssussun_ , he was losing all ability to mask his emotions. 

She looked like she wanted to say something inane like, _I'm sorry_ , but blessedly did not.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, Mavash continuing to rub his back. "You know," she said at last, "this is not at all uncommon."

"Hm?"

"Gaulir did warn me about this. He said that the revivification process is hard on the psyche. And that some people react to it with, uh... the term he used is 'suicidal ideation.' I think that's paladin jargon." She pulled her hand away from his back, her gaze darkening. "I'm so angry at myself for not heeding my instincts, for leaving you alone."

"Don't be," he said. _Be glad you came in time_. He allowed that to slip through the telepathic link, hoping she felt the pleasure the thought gave him. Maybe not that he was alive, but that she had come.

He picked up the wineskin from where he had left it. Wretched or not, he needed something to wet his throat. "I promise this one isn't poisoned." 

Mavash took it from his hand. "I'll be the judge of that." She tipped it back and drank deeply. As he watched her swallow, he realized what a gesture of trust this was. _She didn't know it_ wasn't _poisoned_. 

Except for his word, which no one should trust.

She handed the skin back, and Jorlan took a single swig before placing it beside the bed. It still tasted like shrieker sick to him. 

_Will you be all right?_ Mavash said into his mind. _I'm taking the poisons with me -- just for tonight -- but it would be irresponsible for me to leave you without your blades._ She seasoned the thought with a wash of concern.

He was about to reply _I'm fine_ , but as soon as he formed the words, he realized they were a lie. And worse, she would know they were a lie. Already his mind was spinning deadly fantasies again, the terrible geometry of his own blades against his own flesh. 

_No_ , he replied at last. 

She wrapped an arm around his back. He was not very bold yet, but he allowed himself to melt into her grasp, pillowing his head against her shoulder. 

He wanted, very badly, to be the child who had rested his head in his sister's lap, her fine hands brushing through his hair. To once again be the boy who didn't know the value of his own life. 

Mavash carded her hands in his hair in the same terrible, familiar way. Her own hair fell in a veil over him, white against white. _Can you take your Reverie sitting up like this? I know more about plants than I do about elves._

He nodded. _It's more like meditation. If I'm lucky_ \--and lately he had not been-- _I shouldn't dream._

 _Meditation, I understand,_ she said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Where her lips met his skin, he felt warm, as if touched by radiant magic. _Breathe, Jorlan. Be here with me, in this moment._

The peace of trance seized him quickly, its touch gentler than the subtlest blade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Notes on scars, timelines, and the awfulness of the drow.](http://www.lisefrac.net/log/fanfic-journal-bright-future-chapter-3/)


	4. Zha'linth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her elven colleague had insisted that there were no dreams in the trance state.
> 
> Yet despite those assurances, Jorlan dreamt.

Mavash awoke with a start in cold darkness. She was sitting up, her back pressed against the wall, and everything up and down her spine ached from that awkward position.

And why had she-- oh. 

The room might be cold, the candle burned out, but she had her arms around Jorlan's warm presence. 

The evening before came back to her in a rush. Waking up with terrible fear pooling in her stomach like nausea. The momentary relief when she saw he was well. Then his strange behavior; then the dread as she realized his fatal game. The moments afterward -- his emotions roiling like a tempest inside a glass jar, the contents beyond her reach. And finally, this gentleness, and his face slackening into the elven trance. 

That last bit was worth all the back pain.

She looked down at him, nestled against her shoulder. The only difference she could see between trance and sleep was how he breathed; it was the rhythmic breath of meditation, not the slackened breath of sleep. 

She knew what her fellow druids, many of them elves, had told her about "the Reverie." It was meant to consolidate the hundreds of years of memories that elves had -- not only of this life, but also past lives. It was also supposed to be twice again as restorative as sleep.

Her elven colleague had insisted that there were no dreams in the trance state. _We control it entirely. Dreams are antithetical to that._ She'd been comforted by that thought -- her lack of dreams, as a kalashtar, had always set her apart, and in the early days of her apprenticeship, it meant a great deal to find a similarity like that. 

Yet despite those assurances, Jorlan dreamt. She'd heard and seen the aftereffects of his dreams -- of the nightmares he wouldn't admit to having. When they'd shared a suite in Gauntlgrym, they'd awakened her often. She'd lain awake afterwards, hearing him thrashing and whimpering in the next room, and felt powerless to help. Inevitably she'd be unable to fall back asleep until he quieted.

At least he hadn't been troubled by nightmares tonight. 

She wondered what would happen if she tried to move him. She could feel gooseflesh on the bare skin of his arms, and knew he must be cold. Could she reposition him under the blankets without disturbing him, like a sleeping child? Or would he open his eyes as soon as she made a movement? Elves were supposed to be aware of their surroundings during their Reverie; she wasn't sure if that would be a help or a hindrance here.

Before trying it, she looked down at him appreciatively. She didn't have darkvision as he did, but there was enough light creeping in from the braziers in the courtyard. His silver-white hair was luminous in the dim light, his skin the perfect match for the shadows. It was easy to forget -- with his bravado and his competence with a blade -- that he was a small man (or an average sized drow), but here, cross-legged on the bed, he was only the height of Mavash's shoulder, and she scarcely needed two arms to wrap around him. 

In short, he looked as fragile as the walls of his troubled mind.

Telepathy seemed like it might be the least jarring way to rouse him, so she probed, _Where are you now, Jorlan?_

There was no delay before he responded. _Do you mean physically, mentally, or spiritually?_

She smiled into his hair. _Any of the above._

_I was meditating on the quality of light in my bedroom on a certain day when I was fifty-three years old._

She was taken aback by that response. _Really?_

_You're surprised?_

_It just sounds like the sort of erudite thing a surface elf would meditate on._

_Well. I was also remembering that was the day my dearest matron mother decided to punish one of our slaves for burning one of her gowns, and pressed the poor goblin woman's face into the side of an iron. Is that drow enough for your standards?_ She could feel a jagged edge to the thought, and an undertone of hurt, of _do you think us all ugliness and hate?_

She winced in sympathy. _In that case, I'm sorry to bother you. I just thought you might be cold. And I didn't know if I would be disturbing you._

A pause. _I am cold. It's easy not to notice these things in trance. I think--_ He broke off as he stirred in her grasp. His eyes opened, glinting red as gemstones in the light from outside. 

_How are you feeling?_ She didn't know how to ask, _Still wanting to end your life?_

He didn't answer; only pulled out of Mavash's grasp to burrow under the covers. _Your people make beds all wrong,_ he groused at last.

My _people?_ Whatever he thought he knew about kalashtar, it was probably wrong.

Something like exasperation bubbled up in his mind. _Surface dwellers. Humans. I don't know. A proper bed for trance should only recline slightly. I hate that my only choices are to sit up or to lay prone. It feels like I'm a dead body being prepared for the flames._ After a moment, he added, _Don't you need to sleep?_

Mavash stretched, trying to ease the kinks out of her back. _I have been sleeping, after a fashion._ She yawned, belying the claim. She wanted to lie down and she wanted her own bed. But she didn't know--

 _You can leave me alone,_ he said in response to her unspoken words. _I've stopped thinking about carving bloody crosses on my arms._ Then, with a touch of mirth: _Don't forget, the link goes both ways._

It did. But she had more practice shielding her mind from the telepathic link than he did.

Then again, he just plain had more experience shielding his mind. And maybe, too, reading other people's unspoken thoughts and emotions. _Ever vigilant, always ready to move out of the way of the riptide._

She smiled into the darkness. And yet she didn't rise; she just took his hand, rubbing a thumb over his palm with curiosity. His blades had left calluses at the base of his fingers. 

She didn't want to leave his side, when it came down to it.

 _You don't have to._ And then he yanked on her arm, sending her tumbling to the bed beside him. 

She laughed -- giggled, really, like she was some druid novitiate learning about sex for the first time. But she was incapable of being embarassed, seeing him more at ease than he had been in a long time, teasing in a way that didn't come easily to him.

She turned on her side to face him. _Is this your famous charm?_

 _Mmm. Regrettably, I think you got a taste of that earlier tonight._ She could feel a pulse of shame for his strange behavior. _I think this is what you might call... 'playful?' I don't know. It's a foreign sensation. I'm trying it on._

 _It fits well,_ she said, with a ripple of psychic laugher, and brushed a lock of hair out of his face. 

He looked her up and down, assessing. _Now you're the one who looks cold._

She had left her own blanket in a heap at the end of the bed. She'd reached for it, but he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. _Just get under the covers. There's room enough for both us, and we're both adults here._

 _But think what Gaulir will say?_ she joked.

_Oh, that scaly busybody is probably listening at the door. You know he's our biggest booster, right?_

_Our?_ She wondered about that turn of phrase, but slid under the covers nonetheless. Uncertain how to place herself, she began, _Do you want..._

An uncertain pause. _If you wouldn't mind._ If he'd spoken aloud, the word-thought would have come out as a shy whisper. It seemed it was easier for him, like this, to ask for what he needed.

She wrapped her arms around him again, pulling him close. Once again his head came to rest against her shoulder, her arms encircling his thin frame. This was certainly a much more comfortable position, even if her arm was now pinned beneath him. 

"Is that true?" she murmured aloud, although she wasn't sure why she chose that moment to switch to Undercommon. 

He switched to words as well. "Is what true? That Gaulir is trying to set us up? Definitely. Every time we talk, he's standing off to the side smirking."

"I hadn't noticed. Good thing we're speaking in Undercommon, then." She made a huff of laughter into his hair. "But, no, I meant, about being adults. I have no idea how old you are. In elven or human terms. Am I robbing the cradle?"

"I could ask the same thing of you. I have no idea how kalashtar age. If you were human I might guess you were... fifty?"

Mavash suppressed a laugh. "Half that much. But still very much an adult, thank you. We age at roughly the same rate as humans."

"Well. You can tell I've met _so_ many humans in my life. And of course, the circumstances I met them in were exactly the kinds where you might discuss age."

"Of course." She could too readily imagine what those circumstances were -- raids, or interacting with slaves. But she wasn't going to mention that if he didn't. "And how old are you?"

"Don't you know it's rude to ask a handsome young drow his age?" She couldn't see his face, but she could easily imagine him batting his eyes in mock demureness.

"Mmm, well, maybe you're a thousand or so?" She was pretty sure that was an advanced age for surface elves -- and she was going for the joke -- but was unsure about drow. 

He made a bark of laughter, muffled by her body. "I see you know about as much about how elves age as I do about humans."

 _Just tell me how old you are, Jorlan Duskryn,_ she said into his mind, a gentle nudge.

She could tell he was calculating. _200, I think?_

_You think?_

_It's not like anyone celebrates the births of sons._ A long, uncomfortable pause. _Anyway, it's somewhere between 195 and 204. Which I think is about your age, roughly, in human terms? So you're not robbing the cradle. Since that seemed of some concern to you._

_So what you're saying is, you're somewhere between 'old enough to know better' and 'too young to care.'_

A trickle of mirth, like a spring of fresh water across her mind. _Precisely._ After a moment, he added aloud, "I should let you sleep.

"And I should let you trance."

"I suspect you need the former more than I need the latter, but as you say."

* * *

Mavash was saved from having to explain her... unique bedding circumstances by the impersonal wakeup call -- a Zhentarim enforcer, pounding on each of their doors in turn. "Breakfast with Lady Jassur in an hour," he called. 

She sneaked back to her room, tidied herself, and changed into new clothes. Within the hour she joined her companions in a private alcove of the enclave's refectory. 

Breakfast was not worthy of note -- Mavash had resigned herself to the fact that she'd be eating nothing but mushrooms and goodberries for the rest of her time in the Underdark. _Until we defeat the Lords of the Abyss, or die trying_. Once Ana'Ise set up the shield guardian, they might have shipments from the surface, but for now their breakfast was a journey cake made from dried, sliced mushrooms, and something that looked like bacon, but clearly not from any pig she'd ever seen. Lux--in their usual waifish half-elf form--was digging into the meal with gusto, but everyone else was picking at the food.

Ana'Ise appeared, gliding into the room with a cool grace that belied the fact that they'd nearly sacrificed their lives yesterday. "Friends," she greeted them with a nod. The snakes of her hair were active this morning, curling and uncurling about her neck and ears. "We must speak about the Gravenhollow."

She sat down on a bench across the table from them, and slid a ring across the table. Mavash recognized it as one Ghazrim duLoc wore.

"This is the key you were seeking. Lord duLoc was not eager to part with it, but your heroics yesterday saved him considerable difficulties. And so..." She shrugged, trailing off.

Gaulir spoke up. "This will admit us to the Gravenhollow?"

"More importantly, this will also _lead_ you to the Gravenhollow. It is the sort of place you don't find unless you are looking for it, and this is the compass that will point you there."

Lux picked up the ring, turning it in their fingers. "I don't notice anything special about it."

"Ah, yes, well, there's another matter. First you need to find your way to the Deep Dark. Although..." She fixed her eyes on Mavash. "I believe Morista Malkin of the Emerald Enclave gave you a lead in this regard?"

Mavash looked up at the ceiling, recalling. "The druid called Sladis, yes."

Ana'Ise made a thin smile. "Yes, him. A strange man, but one of the few surfacers who can act as guides. And I can tell you where he is." She waved in a southerly direction. "You will find his encampment on the southern shore of the Darklake. I can't promise you will find him in a good mood, but hopefully he will have heard already from Master Malkin."

"If I might go back a step," Umbra spoke up, "I know we've been told we must go to the Gravenhollow, but what are we hoping to find there?"

A long explanation followed of the Gravenhollow -- how it was a repository of knowledge about the Underdark, a repository of memories, and how it also chronicled events that had not yet happened. If there was any place to learn about the Lords of the Abyss -- to learn about how they got here, and how to banish them back to the Abyss -- it would be there. 

After a long conversation, Ana'Ise excused herself. She would not be traveling with them, as her magics were required for setting up the shield guardian. Mantol-Derith would be a better staging ground than Blingdenstone, and that was news that Jimjar would be happy to bring back to the svirfneblin.

More worrying to Mavash -- Jorlan had still not showed himself. Surely he couldn't require more trance time, so what was keeping him? She bit her lip, trying to focus on her companions' conversation about supplying.

"Do we wish to replace the diamond we used on Jorlan?" Gaulir asked. "We should have more than enough coin, and Mantol-Derith seems like a market where we could find more." He flashed a toothy smile -- well, all his smiles were toothy -- in Mavash's direction. "You're not allowed to answer."

It was in jest, so Mavash said, "I think you already know how I feel about it." She hid her face behind a glass of... what was it? Juice, of some sort? It tasted sweet and yet earthy, so it probably came from some kind of mushroom.

"I don't see why we wouldn't replace it," Umbra added. 

Mavash rose and wandered over to the doorway to the refectory, searching for fresh air -- such as it was, a mile beneath ground. If confronted, she would have admitted she was looking for Jorlan. When he appeared, loping towards the refectory at a quick pace, she felt her face crease automatically into a broad smile.

He noticed her, and a similar look graced his own face -- Mavash's delight echoed in his own. "Waiting for me, were you?" he said.

"I was just a little worried," she murmured under her breath, as if concerned her companions would hear her. She hadn't spoken with them of what had happened last night -- Jorlan's dark night of the soul, as it were -- and she suspected that was a secret she could easily carry to the grave. 

Gaulir looked up from scribbling notes, noticing Jorlan. "Ah, good. We were just discussing purchasing some supplies. On our shopping list is another diamond, some strong healing potions... anything else you can think of?"

"Maybe get a saddle for that moorbounder," he said, with a wink at Mavash.

There was a brief silence as everyone processed the obvious innuendo. Umbra burst out laughing, and Gaulir looked puzzled for a moment before his draconic maw split in a grin. Mavash, for her part, turned away to hide the blush heating her face. 

"Why, Jorlan," Lux said, "I do believe you're flirting. Is that a first?"

"The first time _you've_ heard," he said, the corner of his mouth turning up. 

Gaulir narrowed his eyes in humor. "I'm sure to have survived this long, Jorlan has had to flirt with any number of powerful women. Am I right?"

Jorlan made a nervous cough, evading the question. "My bags are packed and I'm ready to go. Sadly, no time to launder my bloody clothes, so you'll have to excuse my poor sartorial choices for now." He gestured down at his outfit -- the formal clothes that had been made for him in Gauntlgrym, for his presentation before the king. Aside from an excess of gold and silver embroidery, it looked suitable for travel. 

As they filed out of the refectory, Jorlan raised his eyebrows and aimed a look at Mavash. "A _second_ diamond? Whatever did I do to deserve this?" He delivered it with his usual sardonic tone, but Mavash knew there was a genuine question underneath.

 _I mean, aside from saving our lives?_ she replied telepathically, before adding aloud, "Don't spend it all in one place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and changed a couple of small details in chapter 1 and 3, now that I know a little bit more about our boy's lineage. (Specifically, the position of House Duskryn in Menzoberranzan, and his relation to the Matron Mother of the house, Prae'anelle).
> 
> My campaign is at least three sessions ahead of this now, so even though this wasn't where I intended to end the chapter, I figured I'd better release it before I forgot everything that happened.
> 
>  _Zha'linth_ , by the way, means "memory." At least according to the fan dictionary!


	5. Ssinssr'ogglirin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Light take him, Jorlan knew now what was troubling him. This feeling was familiar; it had quickened his hand on the prison door at Velkynvelve._
> 
> Sssinssr'ogglirin. _Or, more crudely,_ vith'ogglirin. _Sex rivalry._
> 
> _Jealousy, in Undercommon._
> 
> In which we meet a druid who wants to devour Mavash in more than one way, Jorlan once again uses murder to solve his problems, Lux is reunited with their own waifu, and oh yeah there's an important library or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers the trip between Mantol-Derith and the Gravenhollow. I wrote and posted the chapter called "Jhinrae" first, but there was some intense emotional stuff for our clueless lovebirds that I wanted to cover. So here we are!
> 
> Minor spoilers for the events of Out of the Abyss through the beginning of Gravenhollow. But as I've said before, you're gonna have a bad time if you expect a precise recounting of the RAW adventure from this fic.

On the southern shores of the Darklake, Mavash thought, _The Underdark is surely beautiful._

It was an alien beauty, and one she hadn't had time to appreciate before now. It was not the sighing of the pines of the Neverwinter Woods, or the exquisite green of early spring. It was phosphorescent fungi glowing like a maze of carnival lanterns, or twinkling like stars in a sunless sky. It was the perfect stillness of the Darklake's surface, reflecting the glow of the nearby city like an unblemished mirror. The entire palette was rendered in the deadly colors Mavash had learned to beware of in nature, the saturated hues of flora and fauna laden with poison -- sulfurous yellow, carmine red, viridian green. 

She was waylaid by the vastness of it, and stood gaping on the shoreline like a landed fish. 

On a small hillock beside the water, a hovel had been carved out of a large zurkhwood mushroom. In front of it sat a tall high elf, his hair flame-red and past his shoulders. His feet were bare, and his toes dangled in the water. Leaning back on his arms, his eyes were closed in a look of pure peace. 

Mavash was nearly sorry to interrupt him. "Sladis Vadir?" she said.

The elf's eyes snapped open, and a look of irritation crossed his face. "Who's asking?" He took in the band of them, from kalashtar to dragonborn to drow, and came to no good conclusion. 

Mavash laid a hand to her heart and bowed her head. "I am the druid Mavash, of Neverwinter Wood. I've been sent by Morista Malkin of the Emerald Enclave. I believe he told you to expect us?" 

Sladis shot to his feet, wiping dirt from his hands. His entire manner had changed at the word "druid." "Oh, yes, indeed. You took longer than I expected getting here! Let me make you some tea; I think I have some nibbles around here somewhere. Or at least some goodberries." 

In the interest of being hospitable, Mavash said, "Yes, we should be very grateful--" 

But the elf had already wandered back to his hovel, and was standing in the door talking to someone. As Mavash approached, she heard a string of chitters and squeaks which she recognized as animal speech. "Yes, yes, Sir Possum," he was saying. "Tea. For"--he looked his shoulder at his guests--"six of them, I think. And this time _try_ not to put too much sugar in it."

Mavash eyed her companions, who looked as baffled by a grown man emitting chirping sounds as she was by the improbable words. She seated herself on a zurkhwood stool that had been placed around a firepit, smoothing her travel skirt over her knees. Her companions came to join her, Jorlan sitting to her left, and Gaulir to her right.

Bustling and crashing noises were coming from within the hovel, but Sladis seemed unconcerned. When he emerged, he seated himself cross-legged in the middle of the circle. "Well, what can Sladis Vadir do for the Emerald Enclave?"

Umbra spoke up first. "We understand you know the paths of the Deep Dark."

Sladis scrutinized the shadar-kai woman, as if trying to decide if she was drow, and therefore dangerous. "I am somewhat familiar with them. Certainly more than most surface druids are." Impossible to tell if that was modesty or cageyness. 

And yet they would have to trust him with their mission; might as well get straight to the point. "We are looking for the Gravenhollow," Mavash said.

Sladis turned back to Mavash, his eyes wide with surprise. "The Gravenhollow! I'm happy to provide any assistance you need, of course, but regrettably I can't say I know the way to that mythical place."

"We have that part well in hand," Lux added, holding up Ghazrim's ring. "We just need to find our way to the Deep Dark."

Sladis' eyes fixed on the ring, though he ignored Lux's words. He continued, to Mavash, "Are you looking to leave immediately?"

"As soon as possible, yes. Of course, we can compensate you accordingly." 

"No need! No need!" Sladis said, with a birdlike flap of his hands. "I am always happy to be of service to a sister of the forest." He made a little bow, a bend of the waist from his sitting position.

Mavash looked out at the impenetrable depths of the Darklake, distracted by a ripple of the water and the shimmer of scales. "When we showed up, were you... dipping your toes in the water? I'm surprised something didn't try to bite them off." She'd been warned of the size and variety of predators that dwelt within the Darklake; how, like the Underdark itself, it was its own microcosm of horrors unfathomed by the world above.

"Oh, well, if I weren't cautious, something might! But," he tapped the side of his head, "I always keep an eye on what's coming."

Mavash sat back, nodding her head with understanding. Her telepathy made such precautions unnecessary -- she could always sense minds nearby -- but for those without, there were spells. "Since the minute I saw the Darklake, I've been wanting to do just that!" Something about that ink-dark water invited the desire to handle it, anoint herself with it. "I'll have to take that into consideration. It's such a beautiful home you've made here, it would be a shame not to take full advantage of it."

Beneath the artificial gloaming of the lights of Mantol-Derith, she had the impression of sitting by a forest lake at sunset with her fellow druids, telling stories. While Sladis might be strange, he was still a druid, and kin, in a way. 

Surprising herself, she smiled up at him. He reminded her a little of Sethendir from her grove, who she'd been traveling with when she was abducted by the drow. Same silky red hair, same ethereal beauty, same flighty nature, always having inane conversations with woodland animals. (He'd once thumb-wrestled a squirrel). She'd fancied him, a little, and was awed by him a great deal, and if she hadn't been captured--

The other druid met her smile with his own lopsided grin, and a duck of his head. "I'm glad you think so. I've put a great deal of work into it. And regrettably I don't often have visitors to appreciate it. Or at least not repeat ones. Ah! Here is our tea!"

Out of the hovel toddled two small animals. Mavash immediately recognized them as surface creatures -- a raccoon and an opossum, both common to Neverwinter Wood, but unheard of here. Each carried in their mouth a little basket; one of the baskets contained a ceramic pot puffing steam, and the second was full of the white-flecked goodberries. 

Mavash put a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. It was like something out of a fairy story -- adorable and yet uncanny. The druids she knew would readily work and fight beside animals, but very few would employ them in this menial manner.

The possum -- an older male, Mavash judged -- waddled into the circle of companions, eyeing each one in turn. Once he had dropped the basket at Mavash's feet, he looked up at Jorlan, baring tiny, needle-sharp teeth and hissing at him.

Jorlan went a pale grey; he hand flew to the hilt of his short sword. "What light-spawned monster is this?" he growled. He looked like a prey animal himself, backed into a corner, lips taught over teeth.

Mavash couldn't help laughing. "Oh, it's just a possum, Jorlan. They're good little creatures. Omnivores. They eat all kinds of dangerous bugs, and ticks, and spiders--" Maybe she shouldn't mention the spiders.

Flatly, Jorlan said, "It has daggers for teeth and the eyes of a madman."

That _was_ an apt description of a possum. And she supposed that if she had never seen one before, she might have had the same reaction at the ball of vicious teeth and attitude. It was endearing, though, seeing the man who had faced down assassins and the kalaraq quori startled by a ragged marsupial.

Mavash offered her hand to the possum for inspection. _Well met, Sir Possum,_ she said to it telepathically. _I have some treats in my bag for you._

As often happened with her telepathy, the animal looked up at Mavash with mingled fear and surprise. _You do not speak like Master Sladis,_ it replied. _What are you, hairless female?_

Mavash laughed, and reached in her pack for a piece of jerky. She'd hardly been called hairless before; if anything, she had more hair than she needed, felting into messy tangles around her face. The possum snapped at the jerky, taking it to retreat a few paces, warily flicking his beady eyes between her and Jorlan. His delicate nose waved in the air, before asking, _Is the grey one your mate? He smells of you._

That made her blush, and she was suddenly glad no one was privy to this unexpectedly intimate conversation. _He is someone I am very fond of. But. No. Not in the way you think._

The possum seemed content with this answer, and maneuvered the strip of dried meat into its mouth with clever little paws. _I will not harm him. You are good like Master Sladis. He brings us meat to eat. We grow fat and lazy here. It pleases us._

"Ah, you return Sir Possum's hospitality with your own!" Sladis said, interrupting their silent conversation. He handed Mavash a chipped porcelain cup, its pattern faded -- another relic of the surface. 

Mavash took the cup, her thoughts lingering on the two creatures. "I'm surprised you brought them all the way here! Do they not find it uncomfortable?" After a thoughtful moment, she added, "For that matter, don't you?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. The Underdark suits me well -- I'd studied it for a long time before I left the surface. I was fascinated with mushrooms, you know, and the faerzress, and how they lived in symbiosis -- a perfect braid of life." His vision grew distant, wistful for a moment, and then he shook it off, chuckling. "And my companions are very accommodating, so long as they are fed."

"Like Lux," Mavash joked, and threw a teasing glance at the changeling. "Feed them, and they will be your new best friend."

Lux looked up, their hand already wrist-deep in the basket of goodberries. "Mrm?" they said around a mouthful.

Sladis turned his back on the blood hunter. Taking the pot of tea from the basket, he poured for Mavash, meeting her eyes in a deliberate and languorous way. In Druidic, he said, "Why do you travel with these lesser races, queen of the forest?" His eyes settled on each of her companions in turn, finding each of them wanting. "A mongrel half elf, this... lizard man, a dwarf, and _two_ drow? Are they your servants? Perhaps, you find them quaint, like I do Sirs Possum and Raccoon?"

Mavash recoiled, taking in the torrent of words -- a language she hadn't heard in months, the term of endearment, the dismissal of her traveling companions. After a stuttering start, she replied in Druidic, "I will not hear them maligned. They are my friends, and they have saved my life a dozen times over."

He looked her over, his lips curving in an indulgent smile. "Of course." He turned towards the others and said in Undercommon, "Let's have tea."

* * *

They had all been served tea -- the water too hot, the brew too bitter, and where had the tea leaves even _come_ from? -- when Sladis returned to the topic of the Gravenhollow. 

"Indulge me, Mavash of Neverwinter Wood. How do you come to be searching for this library?"

Mavash glanced at her companions, wondering how much she should reveal. Seeing no objection, she said, "Surely you are aware of the incursion of the Lords of the Abyss into the Underdark?"

His eyes grew wide, and he lowered his teacup from his lip. "I am not! The demon princes! Fancy that!"

Umbra frowned at his words. "But surely you'd noticed the _faerzress_ affecting your druidic magic? Even I was affected by it, though I've been in the Underdark my whole life."

Mavash remembered camping near the Darklake, nine days out of Velkynvelve, and the odd poisonous fruit that had come to hand when she'd tried to summon goodberries. How even conjuring up a shillelagh, the most basic of her cantrips, became a nearly impossible act. She had acclimated to the magical radiation since then, but if even Umbra had been affected, she was surprised Sladis had not felt the effects.

Sladis weighed that in his mind. "A little, I suppose. The _faerzress_ has always ebbed and waned according to its own patterns, and I've learned not to depend on my magics too much. I can track, and find foods to eat, and find my way easily enough without it."

"How long have you been down here?" Jorlan said.

It was the first thing he'd said since the possum had spooked him. Mavash tried to read motive in his expressions, but was at a loss. She was better than most at that challenging art -- had learned his little tics, his evasions. But to look at his face now... it was blank, emotionless, a perfect mask. 

It reminded her of how he'd looked when they had first taken him prisoner.

Sladis saw none of that, but pursed his lips into a thin line. "Long enough, greyskin. Nothing I've seen in that time has convinced me that you -- the drow -- are anything less than the betrayers of elvenkind, suckling at the teat of your demon goddess."

Mavash had a sudden, idiot urge to point out that drow _were_ elves, too -- though she suspected that would infuriate both of them.

Jorlan made a cold, humorless laugh. _A killer's laugh._. Mavash was reminded that he was not only the small man she'd bundled in her arms the night before, but a very dangerous rogue, death with a shortsword and dagger.

"I suckle at no one's teat," he said, and then, curling his lip in a wry smile. "At least not without being well compensated first."

Gods damn her, Mavash loved that wicked tongue.

Sladis reddened, the perfect complement to his ginger hair. "Mm. Perhaps that clever mouth is why Mavash White-Hair keeps you around, then."

Jorlan turned that smile towards Mavash, raising his eyebrows expressively. The look brought a sense of buoyancy to her stomach, like the feeling of flying.

"If we are to travel together, please rein in your dog, sister," Sladis said in Druidic, not daring to take his eyes off Jorlan. 

But Jorlan was dangerously patient, and it was Sladis who looked away first. 

After an awkward silence, the other druid brushed at the arms of his tunic, as if brushing off the uncomfortable memory. "None of this explains your travel," he said. "I don't mean to pry, but it's not every day I'm asked to serve as guide to a mythical library."

"We wish to learn how the Lords of the Abyss came here, so that we might banish them," Gaulir said. "I'm told the Gravenhollow has all knowledge of the Underdark. If it can't teach us about demons -- their summoning and banishment -- then nothing can."

"A bold plan, lizard! I hope for the sake of the whole Underdark that you are right." Despite the slur against the dragonborn, there was no malice in Sladis' voice. 

_Just wait until he meets Vaeros,_ Mavash transmitted to Gaulir, who replied with a bubble of mirth. The juvenile red dragon -- now the size of a horse -- had remained outside Mantol-Derith, awaiting their return. Clearly that had been a wise decision. 

"Well, it might be a fool's errand," Sladis continued, "but I'm always happy to be of service to a sister of the Circle of the Moon. Shall we go?"

"Now?" Lux said, with some surprise. Their mouth was stained red from the goodberries. 

"No reason to delay," Mavash said, and stood, kicking dust out of her skirt hem. 

Sladis bowed his head, and returned to his hovel, presumably to prepare for the journey. 

Mavash looked down at the raccoon and possum, bustling at her feet, picking up tea cups in tiny paws. She transmitted to them a request -- _take care of this place while Master Sladis is gone_. Their reply -- _of course, of course, hairless one_ \-- tapped against her mind like light rain. 

Within a matter of minutes, Sladis had shouldered a pack, and headed down the trail into the warrens of the Underdark, humming tunelessly under his breath. Gaulir followed close behind in his usual position of vanguard, and the rest of them fell in behind the dragonborn.

At the end of the caravan, Jorlan caught Mavash's arm. "I don't trust him," he said.

"I can't imagine why," she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "It's unpleasant, I'm sure, but perhaps you can tolerate it if for a few days?" She gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. Sladis clearly had no love for any of them save her, but why did he reserve the worst of his disdain for Jorlan? Even Umbra -- a drow to all appearances -- didn't garner the same rancor.

"It's not the first time I've been insulted by a surface elf. And truly, I find it refreshing to be honestly hated rather than secretly plotted against." A shadow fell over his red eyes. "But if he betrays us, I _will_ kill him."

* * *

Two days out from Mantol-Derith, and they were spiraling deeper into darkness, the air growing hotter and stuffier moment by moment. Jorlan's senses told him he was deeper underground than he had ever been, out of the range of his knowledge. The fungi and lichen here were mostly unfamiliar to him, the paths rugged and scarcely traveled.

"Magma vents," Sladis explained, regarding the heat. The elf was tasting the air like some sort of serpent -- _how appropriate_ \-- with his eyes closed. "You can taste the brimstone." He opened his eyes, and started forward again. "It shouldn't become unbearable. But then, I'm not really sure where you're going, am I? I suppose we just wander around until that ring starts talking."

Lux looked down at their hand. "From what I can gather, it thinks we're heading in the right direction." They tapped the ring. "It? They? Her? Is it sentient, like Azuredge or Dawnbringer?"

" 'Outlook uncertain, ask again later,' " Ambergris quipped. 

They rested at midday in a stand of riotously-colored fungi, nurtured by a miasma of faerzress. Jorlan recognized a variety of trillimac, but every other fungus was alien to him as it was to the surfacers. And yet, he felt at ease enough to lie back on a cushion of moss.

These places had always felt safe to him, despite their recent association with the demonic threat. In his youth, he'd sought them out on the outskirts of Menzoberranzan, when things became unbearable in the city itself. He hadn't cared if his innate spells were useless here; he'd always relied more on blades, anyway. But it meant no one else could catch him unawares, ensorcel him, torture him for some imagined slight.

He raised his head at the sounds of animated talking. Mavash was turning a mushroom in her hand, examining the gills. Sladis, beside her, was saying, "--are not real gills, you see. They're not attached in a radial pattern to the cap, but rather are extensions of these raised bits of the stalk." He took the mushroom from Mavash's hand to point them out, his wrist brushing hers.

"Fascinating," Mavash said, with breathy awe. "And by this you can tell they're edible?"

"Not just edible, sister of the forest, but a delicacy! We shall pick some, and your servants can cook them for us." His eyes lit on Jorlan, narrowing in unveiled disgust.

Suffused with rage, Jorlan looked down at his hands. It was a feeling he was used to in combat -- where he let that feeling power his blows. But it was odd to feel it now, in response to this whelp of an elf. He had spoken true to Mavash that he found the other druid's bald-faced hate a relief. It saved having to watch his back. 

So why this?

 _Those who watch their backs meet death from the front,_ went the drow proverb. Maybe that was what troubled him. He was not safe here after all. 

He was not safe.

He became dimly aware of pain -- his fingernails biting into the meat of his palm. He loosened his grip, but blanked out his thoughts, willing his mind and his features to still. He was utterly uninterested and uninteresting. His mind was as dead as a riding lizard's, its brain scrambled to make it docile.

After a timeless moment, he noticed Gaulir studying him. Seeing Jorlan return his gaze, he looked away, leaning to say something to Lux under his breath. Between the distance and that it was in Common, Jorlan had no idea what words they shared, save that they were probably about him.

Meanwhile Mavash and the druid were still talking mushrooms. She tipped her head back and laughed at something he said, exposing the white column of her neck, and--

Light take him, Jorlan knew now what was troubling him. This feeling was familiar; it had quickened his hand on the prison door at Velkynvelve. 

_Sssinssr'ogglirin_. Or, more crudely, _vith'ogglirin._ _Sex rivalry._

Jealousy, in Undercommon. 

Jorlan heard a crunch on the moss beside him, and immediately his hand was on his shortsword. But it was only Lux. They plopped down to sit cross-legged beside him, saying nothing as they scrutinized him, brow furrowed in concentration.

Then the changeling's features melted into a perfect simulacrum of his own. 

His eyes widened and his body recoiled in horror. One was not supposed to meet one's doppleganger.

Maybe that was the point. Or maybe this was what the blood hunter thought was friendly conversation. He'd never understand them, honestly. 

He looked back at Mavash and was surprised to find her watching the two of them. Doubtless Lux's prank had caught her attention. "Look, Jorlan," she said, her mouth alive with laugher, "it's the one person you're capable of loving."

He was unprepared for how those words gutted him -- like Kinyel opening him up with a blade. Exposed, he scrambled for the blank, featureless mask that suddenly he could not put to hand.

(She was right, of course).

After a moment that probably felt longer in his head, he let a calculated smile grace his lips, a hand to his heart. "You wound me, Mavash! Do you think I'm so vain?" He tossed his hair over his shoulder; in a queue currently, it lost some of the effect.

Sladis' cold gaze fixed on Jorlan, his eyes as dead as a fish's. 

_Everyone's a critic._ But Jorlan, at least, was pleased with his performance.

* * *

On the third day out from Mantol-Derith, the ring-compass swerved towards a gap in the tunnel wall. Sladis had passed it moments before, brushing it off as another vent. But the ring was insistent, and so they followed it, to the sound of the underdruid's bewilderment.

(Mavash wasn't sure when she'd starting thinking of him as "the underdruid," but the weak humor added some needed levity to a traveling party gone tense from the oppressive heat).

The space they emerged in provided no relief. On the contrary, it was like stepping into an oven. Ahead of them, a broken, manmade bridge extended out over a lake of lava, which glowed with a coruscating light. Acclimated to the dim as she was, she had to shield her eyes against the glare. Poor Jorlan flinched, fumbling for the sun spectacles buried at the bottom of his pack.

Lux's cry caught Mavash's attention. The blood hunter looked ready to surge forward, their hand on Azuredge. "It's Neheedra," they choked out. "They've got Neheedra."

Some three hundred feet ahead, across the broken stones of the bridge and the expanse of lava, Mavash made out two figures. One of them was definitely the medusa they'd last seen in the Rockblight district of Blingdenstone -- that they'd noticed before she set her deadly petrifying eyes on them. Rather than meeting her with aggression, they had helped her escape her stone prison, a fate deserved by no one. Lux had been the one to climb through rubble in magical darkness to free her, laying a blindfold over Neheedra's eyes with a delicacy belying their usual bloodthirstiness. 

Dimly Mavash recalled that the Gravenhollow had been the medusa's destination, when they had parted. She recalled, too, the long embraces between Lux and Neheedra that preceded that parting, the hushed conversations. After that, Lux had started calling Neheedra "my wife."

The other distant figure had powerful arms, Mavash could tell, by how it held Neheedra off-balance above the lava. It was as tall as a humanoid on insectoid legs, and though it wore clothes, they glowed with a psychedelic indigo light.

Mavash scanned the near side of the bridge, noting a number of smaller creatures gathered there. These ones had long, gangly limbs with hooks in the place of hands, and a terrible prehensible tail, and they dragged themselves across the rock with the clattering of chitin. A pair of pedipalps and chelicerae also gave an arachnoid impression.

Beside Mavash, Gaulir closed his eyes for a moment, snout twitching. "Not fiends," he said, his voice rumbling with ill-restrained fury. "But not of this world, either. Let's be wary."

 _Not of this world?_ And yet, the paladin's divine sense hadn't erred yet. Mavash glanced back at Sladis, raising an eyebrow with a question.

The other druid looked terrified -- his jaw slack, his skin gone pale. He made a slow, heavy gulp, and then managed, "I- I've never seen anything like this."

That must have been enough information for Lux, who charged the nearest enemy. Their features broadened into lycan form, and the crawling creatures looked up in interest. Gaulir shrugged, and said something in Draconic to Vaeros, who lifted into the air and headed for the bridge.

Jorlan had already melted into the shadows; Mavash only knew he had passed by the smell of blade oil. "Don't die, Jorlan," she whispered after him. By now the fear that he would bolt had been replaced with a different one.

And just like that, they were committed. Mavash melted into the shape of a moorbounder, intending the cat's immense speed and powerful jumps to carry her across the broken bridge ahead.

As she sped across the spit of land towards the nearest enemies, the heat of the lava rose up like a wall on both sides of her. Already sweat slicked the barbed hairs of the moorbounder's back. 

A pounce closed the distance to Lux, and landing, she felt the spine of one of the crawlers crack beneath her. But the blood hunter didn't stay to fight; they had a purpose that led them across the bridge.

Mavash was by herself in the thick of it. The crawling monsters did no harm to her; her powerful claws tore through them like tissue paper. But ahead, flying over the bridge, were insectoid monsters -- like the chasme from Velkynvelve -- that looked much more dangerous. They were floating towards her when Gaulir arrived at her side, his steps quickened by his magical boots.

Mavash became aware of a deep rumbling sound beneath their feet -- a sound she now realized had been growing in volume over some seconds. 

Before she could reflect, a gargantuan worm-like creature reared out of the lava and onto the bridge, shattering it like brittle glass. Lux was knocked over by the impact; for a moment it seemed they might pitch into lava below. Above their head, Vaeros reared up, gathering strength to dive in rescue. But Lux managed to scramble to their feet at the last moment, as the segment of bridge before them spilled into the lava with a horrid creaking noise.

What in Vash's name was this thing? Mavash had heard legends of the purple worms that dwelt in the Underdark, but this was clearly not that. Its flesh was black, but with something like magma bleeding through its skin, giving the impression of cooling lava. Its mouthparts were concentric rings of teeth, like a lamprey's, and were ringed with quivering, barbed tentacles.

Mavash dispatched the last of the little monsters and looked behind her. Jorlan was nowhere to be found -- that meant everything was going to plan. Ambergris was still making her way towards them on her short dwarven legs, huffing and puffing. Sladis was not far behind her. 

As she watched, Sladis' hands made the somatic component of a spell. One Mavash recognized, even. But--

"Get going, dwarf," the underdruid cried, and a gust of wind flew from his fingertips into Ambergris' back. She went spinning to the ground and rolled head over feet before stopping. 

What in the Abyss was going _on_? That was an offensive spell Sladis had thrown at the cleric -- admittedly, a minor one. To Mavash's relief, Ambergris was already climbing to her feet. But if this was a prank, it was a very poorly-timed one, indeed. 

Mavash was chilled as she remembered Jorlan's words. _I will kill him if he betrays us._

That chill was a premonition. Jorlan appeared a few feet before Sladis, his shortsword already aimed in a downward arc towards the druid. Sladis only had time to raise his hands in a gesture of defense before the blade sunk itself deep into his neck, making a spray of arterial blood. With his next move, Jorlan's dagger found its home in the druid's belly. Sladis' knees gave out beneath him; if he wasn't already dead, drow poison would finish the job.

None of it made any damn sense. She wanted to shake Sladis, to ask him why he did that. She wanted to take a swipe at Jorlan for his lethal reaction to what might have only been a joke. In the privacy of her own head, she'd jokingly called him _murder elf_ , but now it was a little too real for comfort.

But the flying insectoids descended on her and Gaulir, leaving no time to deliberate.

* * *

It was done, and Lux and Neheedra were embracing on the steps of... well, it was probably the Gravenhollow, judging by the giant stone doors engraved with the same symbol that was on the ring. 

They had cut through the smaller monsters easily, leaving only the challenge of the lava worm. Umbra's brilliance had saved the day there. She had turned to her spells of cold, which had cracked the skin of the giant creature, making it vulnerable to further attack. Within a few heartbeats, it had given a terrible moan and sank back into the lava, dead.

Seeing that, the glowing blue creature had released Neheedra and fled. It was clearly intelligent -- smart enough to live another day. 

Neheedra wiped at her blindfold, now damp with tears. "T-thank you. They set upon me just as you arrived here. They're core spawn -- aberrations, not native to this plane. I think they hoped I could get them in." She gestured at the stone doors, her lips turning into a frown. "Though it's puzzled me for nearly a fortnight now. It seems to require some key -- and it's not the sort of lock you can pick."

"Pity."

Mavash spun, seeing Jorlan appear behind her. He had Sladis' pack slung over one shoulder, but he tossed it at Mavash's feet as he approached.

 _Like a cat bringing its owner a dead mouse._ She supposed she should be grateful it wasn't the underdruid's head.

The anger she'd felt, seeing the other druid cut down with little provocation, flared up in her chest again. "What in the Abyss was _that_?" she growled. 

Jorlan met her rage with a tired calm. "Open the satchel" he said, at the same time that Ambergris said, "Let me wrench out Sladis' soul and ask him myself." Necrotic energy flared at the tips of the dwarf's fingers, black and bubbling.

_As if we were at any risk of forgetting she's a priestess of Shar._

"Maybe it was just a prank!" Mavash waved her hands expressively, feeling her voice spiral out of control. "But now a man -- our _ally_ , need I remind you? -- is dead, and it's too late to take it back." She looked over at Gaulir, wondering if the paladin had any more powerful spells of resurrection.

Again Jorlan said, "Open the satchel." He met her eyes. "Mavash. Please."

As Mavash bent down to the backpack, an odor like decaying meat assaulted her, sickly sweet. She opened the flap--

She gasped, stumbling away, feeling her stomach roil. She was no stranger to violence, but it was one thing to see blood; it was another to see

_\--a severed hand, bloated, clearly humanoid. Maggots making a feast of it, worming holes through the dead flesh down to the bone. And oh gods, something with bigger, blunter teeth had gnawed on it, too--_

She pushed the terrible thing away from her, moaning. "Did you know?" she said, not meeting Jorlan's eyes.

He made a curt nod. "Since making camp yesterday. I did a little... exploring while Sladis was attending to the necessaries."

"Spying, more like," Ambergris grumbled, beside him. "D'you do the same to everyone who joins the party?"

He narrowed his eyes with mirth. "You are all very easy to deceive with a little sleight of hand." He winked at the dwarf. "I approve of your taste in weaponry, by the way."

Mavash, however, was caught on another point. "Why," she began hoarsely, "did you not _tell_ us?"

His mouth moved silently, as if discarding many different replies. "I'm not a precipitous person." He looked back towards the lava, his gaze growing distant. "And anyway, I didn't find a backpack full of parts. This was what I found instead; he'd left it lying by his bedroll."

From his doublet, he produced a leather-bound book, handing it to Mavash. A journal of some sort, then. The cover was dappled with dark brown stains -- blood, of course, but they could have easily passed for mud or wine.

"Any man may write about the succulence of humanoid flesh, but it's not exactly damning evidence by itself." Jorlan licked his lips. "I'd hoped I was wrong. I'd hoped it was fiction. This act... is anathema, even to the drow." 

"He was a cannibal," Umbra said, as if she had just realized the situation.

"He was mad as a derro, in any case," Lux added -- and then winced, clearly thinking of one particular derro of the party's acquaintance. They turned to Neheedra as if to lead the medusa away protectively. "You shouldn't see this. Well, I guess you can't see this." The changeling made a hiccup, followed by a nervous laugh.

Neheedra nuzzled at Lux's head, seeking comfort regardless. "I can smell it. That's bad enough." To the rest of them, she said, "It must be the _faerzress_ that made him mad."

"Or maybe Zuggtmoy's spores," Gaulir suggested. "He was rather taken with mushrooms. Though I shudder to think of Zuggtmoy's influence that close to Mantol-Derith."

"Then maybe it's an aftereffect of Frazz-Ur'bluu's gem?" Umbra added.

The possibility of redemption made guilt sit heavy in Mavash's chest. "If it was from the gem, it could have been cured, then..."

Jorlan gave a sigh of tremendous forbearance, and muttered something in Drow under his breath.

Neheedra's ears pricked up. "Now that's a tongue I haven't heard since the drow left Blingdenstone. I made a few statues out of them, in those days." A sad smile. "Is this one your partner, then, Mavash?"

"No!" she said at the same time as Gaulir said, "Not yet."

Mavash rose to her feet, aiming a playful kick at the dragonborn's boot. "Right, you wouldn't have met Jorlan yet, would you? He -- and Ambergris here -- joined us when we reached the surface." In very, very different ways, but that didn't need to be said.

"A drow on the surface, how fascinating!" Neheedra said. "You must tell me all your stories!"

Jorlan took off his sun spectacles and folded them in his hand. "It's too bright and there are small rodents with too many teeth. Also the surfacers drink rotting grape juice, which is disgusting, and they don't know how to make beds. And everyone is so gods-damned earnest."

"Aye, that about sums it up," Ambergris said, with a chuckle. 

Lux produced duLoc's ring then, and pressed it to an indentation in the carved stone of the door. With a heavy groan, the doors began to move inward. 

Before she stepped inside, Mavash looked to the journal in her hands. She didn't want to read it. "What will I find within this?"

Jorlan clapped her on the back, leading her towards the entrance. "Aside from the cannibalism.... maybe your name surrounded by hearts?" He chuckled, squinting up at the lintel of the Gravenhollow's doors. "I'll read it more fully while you dedicated scholars do your research."

 _Thank you for sparing me that,_ she told him telepathically, and was pleased when he squeezed her shoulder in response.

* * *

The Gravenhollow was like no library Mavash had ever seen.

For one thing, they'd been greeted at the door by a basilisk. A basilisk standing on two legs and wearing shaded spectacles, admittedly, which rendered him somehow less threatening. His name was Veldyskar, and he told the companions that he would be their guide to the Gravenhollow. 

He also subtly implied that if they damaged any of the volumes, or otherwise caused trouble, he wouldn't hesitate to treat them to his petrifying gaze.

Secondly, a large portion of the library wasn't books, but... memories. They'd been warned of this, of course; it was what made the Gravenhollow unique. But still it was uncanny to see ghostly images of historical figures that Mavash knew only from coins and art. Of course, they weren't spirits of the dead, but more like mirages. She heard the voice of King Bruenor Battlehammer down a hallway, and had to remind herself that he was assuredly still alive -- or at least had been when they'd left Gauntlgrym.

They entered an expansive room flanked by tall pillars and headed by a vast stone throne, too big for sitting. Another of the mirage-figures had been placed before the throne, hands raised as if casting a spell. He was an older drow male, his face long and lean, with white hair falling over the shoulders of green robes. With a staff at his side completing the look, there was no doubt it was meant to depict a wizard.

As they drew near, however, the mirage turned towards them with a smile, and Mavash realized it wasn't a simulacrum, but an actual flesh-and-blood drow.

"Ah, you must be the heroes of Velkynvelve!" the wizard said. "I was told to expect you. I, of course, am Vizeran deVir." He put his hand to his chest and made a half-bow -- then waited, as if anticipating a reaction.

 _Should I know that name?_ Mavash probed Jorlan.

Jorlan's jaw was set and his lips fixed in a hard line. _No reason you should. He's a powerful wizard, but his house was destroyed a couple of hundred years ago. He's supposed to be the sole survivor of the massacre. Oh, and the matrons of Menzoberranzan would dearly like to get their hands on him._ He looked as if he was calculating how he might turn that to his advantage. 

Of course he was.

Vizeran walked down three steps to greet them. "A kalashtar, a dragonborn, a changeling, and a shadar-kai. What a motley band you make. By comparison, a dwarf and a drow as traveling companions seems rather mundane." He gestured to Ambergris, but his hand faltered as he saw Jorlan, confusion clouding his features.

"Ah," the wizard continued after a moment. "I see you've met my greatest mistake. Well met, Jorlan _Duskryn_." A smug smile graced his lips. 

Mavash glanced over at Jorlan.

... who was examining the floor, scuffing the tile with his boot. "Ah yes. Everyone. This is Vizeran deVir. He is my -- I suppose you would say -- _sire_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's where I tweeted along with this juicy session full of pent-up jealousy](https://twitter.com/lisefrac/status/1322952591496630273). 
> 
> [Gaze upon Mavash in all her glory](https://twitter.com/lisefrac/status/1330909851925536768?s=20). I commissioned Kii Weatherton to do this art, and it made me love Mavash even more.
> 
> I have SO MANY notes about my inspirations for this chapter, but it's already too long, so I guess [follow me on Twitter](https://twitter.com/lisefrac) if you want to hear me talk about mushrooms and drow? Or make a comment and I'll reply with a random fact about this chapter. You do you.
> 
> ETA: holy shit I just realized I've been spelling "Neheedra" wrong this whole time. I've been going by the name on her token in roll20, but let us say, our DM does not excel at spelling.


	6. Jhinrae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I _do_ wonder what you would be like drunk." Mavash's smile broadened into a grin. 
> 
> Jorlan narrowed his eyes in mirth, and said, his voice low, "You'd find me very entertaining when I'm drunk. I become, if possible, even more charismatic."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery through chatting with Vizeran deVir at the Gravenhollow. 
> 
> Yes, in some sense this is all an attempt to get Mavash and Jorlan drunk.

After Veldyskar closed the chamber door behind him, Mavash whirled on Jorlan. "Vizeran deVir is your _father_?"

"More importantly," Lux piped up, "are there any adorable baby portraits of you?"

Other voices joined in, but Jorlan raised a hand. "You know, that room looks very inviting right now." He pointed over his shoulder to the room Veldyskar had pointed out, glimmering with just the right amount of light for drow eyes, the lintel set at the right height for drow heads. "And I could use a rest." He made exaggerated movements towards the door.

He relented at the last minute, leaning against the doorframe. "All right," he said in Common. He'd spent more time speaking that language lately, but he still spoke it haltingly. "Mavash. You would ask your question?"

Mavash opened her mouth, but no sound came out. What _did_ she want to know? _Everything_ , but she could scarcely say that.

It was Umbra who saved her, saying, "I suppose we'd like to know the nature of your relationship with Vizeran deVir."

Mavash blurted out at last, "And why do you not take his name?" Why was that the first thing that came to mind?

Jorlan turned an indulgent smile to Mavash. "Well, _your_ question has an easy answer. Drow children take the names of their mother, of course." He paused, struggling to find the words. "Not mother, quite. The head of the house. The word in Drow is _ilharess_. It--" He stopped, his mouth gaping open as he tried to find the words.

"'Matron mother' is the phrase in Common, I believe," Neheedra said. Her lips curved up in a slight smile, her eyes unreadable behind her blindfold. "I had much opportunity to learn Common from my... visitors."

Jorlan gave a nod. "Yes. Mother of mothers. I would always be Duskryn, after the matron mother. Who was not _my_ birth mother, but _the_ mother. If that makes sense." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Common is... imprecise."

"Go on," Mavash encouraged him.

It was a moment before he continued. "Umbra's question, then. I told you Vizeran was an outlaw. An exile. His crime was being too powerful for the liking of the priestesses. But before that, his family was influential, the fourth house in Menzoberranzan. Their star was... rising? Is that the term?"

Mavash nodded.

"In that time he caught the attention of Matron Mother Duskryn. She wished..." He held out a hand, as if grasping elusive ideas. "Let me go back. Duskryn was -- is -- the ninth house of the city. Do you know what that means?"

"The top eight houses form the Council," Mavash said. "Ninth is..."

"Ninth is... how do you say it? Out of the running. It stung Ilharess Duskryn to be so close and yet so far away from the highest honors of Menzoberranzan, especially ones we had held in the distant past. One of the things House Duskryn lacked was magic, _faer_. The Matron Mother saw the deVirs, saw Vizeran, and wished to bring that power into her bloodline."

Ambergris, who had been digging through her satchel, cursed under her breath. "Bloody drow eugenics."

Jorlan frowned at the unfamiliar words. Rather than explain, Mavash pressed, "Was it not... scandalous, what the Matron Mother did?"

He shrugged. "It was not a job she did herself. She assigned it to the second priestess of the house, keeping her hands carefully clean. And no one may question who a priestess brings to her bed." He inhaled deeply. "It is that second priestess who birthed my twin sister and me."

Mavash raised her eyebrows. "Sister! You've never spoken of her. Is she--"

Jorlan raised a hand to stop her. "There is more. The star of the deVirs was no longer rising. Vizeran was branded a heretic and exiled. The house fell out of Lolth's favor, and was destroyed. House Duskryn's complicity with the outlaw Vizeran became known, and when the bloodline was declared dead--" His lips moved wordlessly for a few moments before settling into a sour smile. "How do I say this? A punishment--no, a tax--was put on House Duskryn. House deVir was dead, and if we wished to take their place on the Council, we would relinquish all we had taken of their blood." Jorlan's gaze was fixed on a far point, looking through his companions. "My sister paid Lolth's price. I, being utterly without value, was allowed to live."

Mavash touched her hand to her chest. "Oh, Jorlan," she whispered. "My heart--"

"Please," Jorlan demurred, looking embarrassed. "That is... how it is, in Menzoberranzan. What it does not destroy, it hones." He closed his eyes. "I am a well-honed weapon."

A moment's uncomfortable silence, before Mavash added, "I cannot hate the whole city, if it has given us you." She paused, licking her lips, before continuing, "You said the Matron Mother wanted to breed magic into the Duskryn line. Did she succeed?" She waved at Jorlan. "I didn't think you were magically gifted."

For a moment he looked pained, as if Mavash had just struck him. It was gone in an instant, his face once again placid. "No, I'm not so gifted, aside from things that all drow know innately. My sister, however... it was believed she would be a more powerful wizard than Vizeran himself."

A long, palpable silence filled the room. Even the dwarf priestess had given up her puttering, and was watching Jorlan assessingly. 

"And yet you are still the ninth house, are you not?" Gaulir said, breaking the silence. "Did your house not gain what it wished?"

"No," he said, his voice flat. "Despite promises otherwise, House Baenre -- the first house of the city -- saw fit to re-create House Do'Urden in its place. Duskryn remains ninth, and..." He trailed off.

Unspoken was _my sister's death was in vain_ , but everyone in the room knew it; it was writ in their sympathetic glances.

Those would pain him more than the memory itself, and so Mavash changed the topic. "I think that's the most you've ever said about yourself. And in Common, too!"

"Well, you wouldn't stop asking," he murmured in Undercommon. He instantly returned to the sardonic Jorlan she knew, his mannerisms easing into a language he was more comfortable with.

Mavash thought back to her introduction to Vizeran. "I gather there is no love lost between you and your father?"

Jorlan had turned his attention to the great stone table of the room, running his fingers along the stonework. "Hm? What makes you say that?"

"What he called you when we met him." She winced to say the words aloud. "'My greatest mistake.'"

He laughed at the memory. "Oh, that. No, it's... a joke? The mistake is that my sister is dead and I am alive." He ducked his head. "Perhaps it doesn't translate well from Drow."

Umbra nodded her head. "No, I think I understand what he meant. It's... sweet, almost."

Mavash looked between Umbra -- prisoner of the drow, passing as drow, for so long -- and the wounded man at her side. She wanted to ask, _Who hurt you so?_ , but she knew the answer already. "I think I will never understand the drow."

Jorlan gave her a pitying look, as if to say, _Pray that you never do._

A throat was cleared, and Neheedra spoke up. "On that note... I still have not received an introduction to your new companions." Her turned to Jorlan and Ambergris in turn -- a habit of the sighted. "You had a different dwarf woman with you when we met, in Rockblight. And certainly no drow... mercenary?"

Jorlan made a flourish of a bow. "Jorlan Duskryn, formerly of House Duskryn of Menzoberranzan. Now outlaw and traveling companion to the, ahem, 'heroes of Velkynvelve.' "

Neheedra bobbed her head in greeting. "A pleasure, I'm sure. I suppose you could say I understand where you come from. I know it doesn't appear so now, but I was once a high priestess of Menzoberranzan." She looked at Lux, biting her lip nervously. The changeling took her hand and squeezed it. "I even knew your family, Jorlan." An odd smile passed over Neheedra's features at the word _family_ \-- Mavash might have almost termed it _sly_. "But after being cursed into this form, I had many years to reconsider my life and my choices. I suppose now that I'm free, I'm looking for a... blank slate, of a sort."

"There does seem to be an epidemic of that," Gaulir said, glancing over at Jorlan, mirth lightening his rasping voice.

Ambergris stepped forward, taking the medusa's hand between two of her own. "And I'm Ambergristle O'Maul, that some call Cray, of Gauntlgrym. Priestess of Shar."

"Oh!" Neheedra breathed. "Now, that is odd. I did not think the dwarves favored the darker pantheon."

"They don't," Ambergris said, a note of disdain entering her voice. "But my goddess is not all she appears, and my relationship with her is none of their concern. Our king trusts me, and that is all that matters."

Neheedra bowed her head. "I'm sure I have no judgment in the matter. I am no longer a priestess. And even if I were..."

It didn't need to be said. Lolth was still a crueler mistress than Shar.

Jorlan slapped his thighs and stood up. "Well, I'm no priestess, either. And I need some rest."

"But Jorlan," Mavash teased, "You'd look so fetching in a dress."

The tips of his ears darkened in a blush. "Alas, I don't think I have the figure for it," he said, surveying his own body.

Lux leaned over to Mavash, and whispered, "How about: a maid costume?" Their face crinkled with humor, the blood hunter indulging their trickster side.

Jorlan held up a finger. "One: I have very keen hearing. Two..." His smile fell, and continued more seriously, "Excuse me. But having once been in the position of ultimate service... I am not eager to return to it."

 _Please,_ Mavash said to Lux telepathically, _No jokes like that around the fellow that's been told since birth that he only exists to serve women._

A knock sounded at the door. Startled, it was some moments before anyone replied. It was finally Lux who sang out, "Who is it?"

A reedy, familiar voice said, "It is I, Vizeran deVir, of the Tower of Araj." His affected formality was at odds with the circumstances -- trying to talk to them through a stone door.

 _Araj?_ Mavash mouthed at Jorlan.

"It means 'vengeance,' " he murmured. "He bears a certain animosity towards the drow of Menzoberranzan, as you can imagine."

"Indeed," Mavash said. "If I were him I would want to burn it all down."

"Come in, old man," Jorlan hollered, winking at Mavash. 

_Let's meet this vengeful drow wizard._

* * *

After deVir had excused himself, a long silence fell on the room. 

Telepathically, however, the conversation ticked on. 

_If I understand correctly, he wants us to join him at his tower so that we might discuss more freely what we learn here in the Gravenhollow?_

_He doesn't trust that the walls aren't listening. He was relieved when I suggested telepathy. I don't think I've ever seen a grown drow male that happy about anything._

_Did he really suggest that we lie to the Stonespeakers about what we were looking for?_

"Well," Jorlan said aloud, for the benefit of the wall's ears. "I can't agree with my father's taste in wine, but I do like to indulge once in a while. Shall we see about dinner?"

As if summoned, Veldyskar entered the room, followed by several odd creatures who looked like blobs of stone given legs. "Galeb duhr," he said to Mavash, and she wasn't sure if that was their name, or if he should be excusing him. 

In any case, the stone creatures carried in plate after plate of food. No mushroom-everything, this; the dishes looked and smelled like something out of a dinner party in Neverwinter. The plates were small but numerous, and Mavash smelled roasted carrots and quail and raisins, and oh, there was even real wine. Ewers and ewers of it. 

Running a finger over a damp, cold pitcher of white wine, Mavash smiled at Jorlan. "Look, it's your favorite."

He made a sound low in his throat that could have been a growl or a chuckle. "As I said... and anyway, we're not short on intoxicants in Menzoberranzan. They just aren't weird rotting fruit juice."

"I _do_ wonder what you would be like drunk." Her smile broadened into a grin. 

He narrowed his eyes in mirth, and said, his voice low, "You'd find me very entertaining when I'm drunk. I become, if possible, even more charismatic."

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Ah, no. There are some matrons who--"

Veldyskar interrupted, clearing his throat. "Please enjoy. Tomorrow you will have your audience with the librarians. As I have suggested, you might use this time to determine the subject of your research." He backed out of the room, and the galeb duhr followed after him. 

They settled in to eat in their usual informal way -- dishes passed around the table to share, the talk flowing freely, dinner etiquette becoming blurry. Jorlan learned, to his visible delight, that several of pitchers contained not the "weird rotting fruit juice" he disdained, but a drink that was more familiar to his palate.

"Or, as I like to call it," Mavash said, "weird rotting mushroom juice."

Jorlan cradled a pitcher close to his chest. "I'll keep it all to myself, then, if no one else wants any."

"I'll happily partake," Neheedra piped up. "Light, I haven't had _jhinrae_ in I don't know how long."

"Oh, I'll try some, I suppose," Umbra said, and held out a glass. "It's not like my captors ever deigned to share any with me, and I'm curious."

" _Jhinrae_ ," Mavash said, feeling how the Drow word sounded on the tongue. "What does that mean?"

There was a twinkle of mischief in Jorlan's eye as he said, "It means 'wine.' "

"It doesn't have some poetic meaning like, 'blood of the earth,' or something?" Lux asked.

"The less said of drow poetry, the better," Ambergris interjected, and continued slathering butter onto a slice of bread. 

Resigned to the fact that morphology did not explain itself, Mavash continued, "I _would_ like to try it." She'd had little chance to indulge her taste for intoxicants during her time in the Underdark -- not until Gauntlgrym, but even then she'd been too busy to sample their famous brews.

Mavash was a connoisseur of altered states, collecting these experiences like some people collected antiques. She wasn't particularly beholden to any single vice, but she _had_ missed the freedom to partake. It was hard to do so when running for one's life in unfamiliar and deadly terrain. 

Jorlan poured out half a glass for her, and met her gaze with a challenge in his eye. "You probably won't like it." 

Mavash raised the glass and inspected the beverage. It was golden-brown and oddly iridescent. Putting it to her nose, she smelled the odors of freshly-tilled soil and barnyards, and wrinkled her nose. "Is this fermented with yeast?" She repeated the word in Undercommon, in case the brewing terms were unfamiliar to him. 

But it was no help to him in either language. In Common, for the benefit of the table, he replied. "Mm, I'm not sure I know what that is? This is how it is made: we press mash'ar mushrooms to produce a slurry. Then we add sweet things and water. There are... tiny animals? That live on the surface of the mushrooms, that eat the sweet things, and grow in number, and turn the sweetness into alcohol."

That was a lot like making normal wine or ale, then. Although it did not surprise Mavash to learn that mushrooms, by themselves, did not produce enough sugar for fermenting. The drow must also use some type of wild yeast, lacking the precision of the vintners of the Sword Coast. 

"Where does one get sugar in the Underdark?" Gaulir asked, asking the question that was already on Mavash's mind. "Doesn't it mostly come from surface things? Honey from bees, sugar beets, sugar cane down in Calimshan... what am I forgetting?"

Jorlan dropped his eyes to his plate, looking apologetic. "Surface raids, I'm afraid. And then, well, anything can grow under a Daylight spell. I've had orders before to tear up fields of... what do you call them? Dark green leaves, red roots?"

Gaulir nodded. "Sounds like sugar beets to me."

Mavash was more concerned with this talk of surface raids. It was something the drow did, of course, but it was easy to forget that Jorlan would have taken part in them. For some time now she'd been avoiding asking him about one surface raid in particular--

The wine in her hand. It wasn't getting any more appealing, so she raised it to her mouth and took a tentative sip.

It tasted... briny. Yes, that was a good word for it -- like someone had taken the liquid from a barrel of pickles and distilled it. It was mostly savory and sour, with most of the sugar transmuted into alcohol. It was a dry on her tongue as the potato liquor of her native Sossal -- this vintage had brewed a long, long time.

But it was not unpleasant. 

Still competitive, Mavash downed the rest of the glass, feeling it heat her stomach. She held out her glass to Jorlan for more.

Amber chuckled and said, "Put some food in your stomach first, dearie, or you're going to be under the table by the end of the meal. Or in this one's bed." She gestured at Jorlan.

A combination of embarrassment and alcohol colored Mavash's cheeks. "Ah, yes, you are wise." She hadn't eaten... oh, since they'd struck camp this morning, and she was famished. She brought a breadbasket and a platter of sliced roast beef to her side, and piled food onto her plate.

Jorlan refilled Mavash's glass, the corner of his lip twitching with mischief. He kept his eyes on the druid as he said, "Amber, you say that like that's a bad thing."

She snorted in reply. "To each their tastes, I suppose."

Gaulir cleared his throat and said, "Are we in agreement, then, about what we wish to research?"

"How and why the Lords of the Abyss came to the Underdark, and how they might be sent back," Umbra said, by rote. Since the telepathic link was still open, she added, _And, if we can find it, information on what weapons might be used against them._

That was the bit that Vizeran hadn't wanted them to speak aloud. That was what he wanted to save for visiting him in the Tower of Araj. Who, precisely, the older drow mistrusted here in the Gravenhollow was uncertain. But he had made it clear that, if nothing else, the Gravenhollow wasn't entirely magical; it relied on a network of mortal spies, as well. And those, of course, could be coopted.

_Just so,_ Mavash added. 

Returning to an earlier topic, Lux turned to Neheedra. "You never told me what your favorite food was!" It had come up when they'd been pretending to make small talk while discussing their plans telepathically. 

The conversation ticked on like that, pleasant and meaningless. Jorlan waxed rhapsodic about Menzoberranzan noodles -- made of an extruded mushroom paste, with a sauce made from the ink of the rocktopus -- and Lux extoled the virtues of hot chocolate to Neheedra. The food was perfectly seasoned, and Vash, she hadn't eaten so well since Gauntlgrym. Maybe before then, depending on how one felt about dwarvish cuisine. 

Nor drank so well. She had several glasses of that mushroom wine, but also real wine, too, both red and white. There was a golden dessert wine, too, and a tawny port, and... 

Eventually the party left the table and adjourned to the common sitting area. It was a lower section of the floor, encircled by stone benches covered in an array of cushions and furs to make them comfortable. Mavash claimed a corner seat and wrapped one of the blankets around her. She was very hazy right now, and the muscles in her back didn't seem to be working very well, but she felt warm and safe, in a way she hadn't in a very long time. She was surrounded by friends, in a gigantic library, being plied with food and drink. 

Just for one night, maybe, nothing would try to murder them. 

And to make things even better, her dear drow friend sat down beside her. Gods, but Jorlan was gorgeous, in the way of elves -- sharp-angled, androgynous, and deadly as a blade. Not to mention his eyes that blazed like coals, and hair the color of a moon he scarcely knew, which fell in waves to his shoulders. 

Mavash reached out a hand towards his face, but it flopped lazily into his lap instead. She giggled. 

From a great distance, Jorlan said, "Are you well? You're so pale." He took her hand between his, his sword-callused hands cool against her heated skin. "And clammy, too." Concern wrinkled his brow, and he lowered his voice. "How much did you drink? I lost count after eight glasses." He glanced back furtively at their companions. 

The sound of their friends' sudden laughter strobed through Mavash's head like sunlight off crystal, turning her stomach. But it was a minor concern, very far away. 

She was very warm. Very safe. Very hazy. 

"Mavash, can you hear me?" 

Very sick, all over Jorlan's boots. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jorlan being the son of Vizeran de Vir is, of course, not from the RAW adventure, although all the stuff about Vizeran being banished is. The stuff about House deVir being destroyed is cannoical, as well. 
> 
> In case you saw the name of Lux's sweetie and said, "Wait, wasn't Neheedra the medusa in the Rockblight of Blingdenstone?" YES SHE WAS. This party does one thing well, and that's forming attachments to random NPCs we probably should have killed.
> 
> Folks, I spent so much time thinking about wine in the chapter. Starting with: _why do the drow have a word for wine?_ and following up with _Do mushrooms have enough sugar to ferment by themselves?_ (no) and _Come to think of it, where does one get sugars in the Underdark?_ (it basically has to come from the surface -- photosynthesis, yo).
> 
> I decided jhinrae is made with mushrooms augmented with sugar from the surface, and fermented with wild yeast/lactobacillus, in the style of sour-type beers. This beer snob imagines it tasting kind of [Revival Brewing Company's](https://www.revivalbrewing.com/) Up Ship's Kriek, which tastes like alcoholic pickle juice and yet is AMAZINGLY GOOD.
> 
> For all that I'm a beer snob, I've never been blackout drunk, so please excuse any inaccuracies to the experience of being utterly shit-faced.
> 
> I recently put together a Pinterest board called "hot elf bois" (as one does), and came across [this art](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/489414684511556141/), which is exactly how I picture Jorlan.
> 
> In case you are curious how much of my fic comes directly from the session vs. stuff I make up... it's about 50/50. I have a pretty good memory for the session, especially if I write things down, so I can usually quote DM Nixon fairly accurately. But most of the Jorlan/Mavash one-on-one stuff is made up, because we don't usually split the party just so I can have heartfelt roleplay with my waifu.
> 
> There is another chapter in progress, which is the logical conclusion of "Jorlan and Mavash get drunk" and in which there MAY ACTUALLY BE SNOGGING OMG.


	7. Khaless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mavash paused, sorting through feelings she'd never dared put words to before, and resigning herself to them with a sigh. "Jorlan, I think about you... a troubling amount."
> 
> \--
> 
> In which Mavash and Jorlan are honest about their feelings for each other, but still our boy is gonna overthink everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still in the Gravenhollow. Still drunk. Still being ridiculous. And woah, there's actually kissing in this chapter. WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE?
> 
> Also you get a glimpse at how Mavash's capture by the drow went down, and who Jorlan was before he was an outlaw. (Spoiler: not a very nice person).

The next thing Mavash knew, she was in the bed in her suite -- a featherbed covered in the white furs of arctic bears, in the style of her birthplace. Her face was burning like a brand, but a cool cloth was on her forehead, and a cool hand rested against her cheek. She raised her hand to meet it, unsurprised to find dark grey fingers against hers. 

At that moment, she remembered retching all over his feet, and buried her face in the down pillow. 

"I think you told me something about your famous alcohol tolerance, when we were in Gauntlgrym," Jorlan said, removing the cool compress. "My confidence has been shaken."

Muffled by the pillow, Mavash replied, "You drank nearly as much as me. And you're smaller." She raised her head, felt her vision spin before her, and laid back again. 

Jorlan sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in his loose sleeping clothes. "Mm. So you keep reminding me." He picked up a glass bauble from the side table, which Mavash recognized as a float for a fishing net. "I'm feeling rather jolly myself. I'm just better at hiding it. It's that famous survival instinct you accused me of having." He winked at her.

She made a little exhalation of breath, which was the most she could manage in the way of mirth. The muscles in her stomach protested at the effort they'd expended in vomiting up dinner. "You, jolly? How could I tell?"

"Well, since I _did_ clean up the mess you made, and volunteered to make sure you didn't choke on your own vomit," he said, with an indulgent smile, "I suspect I'm more generous when I'm tipsy."

She groaned, lolling her head against the pillow. "Getting drunk with you... this was not how I pictured it." She smacked her lips. "Ugh. My mouth tastes like dirt."

"I thought you might say that." He offered her a waterskin from the bedside table. "Here, drink up. It will help the alcohol clear your body."

The water was sweet and blessedly cool on Mavash's tongue. When she had drunk her fill, she handed the waterskin back to Jorlan. "You didn't warn me that drow poison could taste so pleasant."

He raised an eyebrow. "The _jhinrae_? Truly? You weren't just saying that for my benefit?"

Mavash turned on her side, looking up at him with a playful smile. "I enjoy weird stuff."

"Mmm, yes, your tastes are extremely suspect." The smile he returned was one of deep fondness. He reached out a hand, as if to touch her hair, and then dropped it to his side again, looking down at his knuckles contemplatively. 

Mavash's thoughts were still fuzzy, and Jorlan's smile was nearly as intoxicating as wine. She had worked very hard to win that smile, and she didn't want to see it fall. Telepathically, she probed, _What troubles you?_

 _I want--_ he began, but then she felt the wave of his self-hatred. _I am not allowed to want things._ He was sober enough to rein himself in, but too drunk to shield that thought.

He broke eye contact. "I'm sorry," he said aloud. "You're sick. I don't mean to trouble you." He made as if to rise.

 _No_ , Mavash said, psychically but insistently. She grabbed his arm and pulled him down to the bed. Before he could protest, she had an arm around his waist, levering herself closer to him. "No trouble to me," she whispered, against his side. "Don't go. Please."

He relaxed into the embrace with a release of breath. Mavash lost no time in settling her head in his lap; this time, he only hesitated briefly before brushing the back of his hand over the plane of her temple. "Well," he murmured, "how can I deny my most lovely jailor?"

She raised herself on her elbow to meet his gaze, her head spinning marginally less this time. "You don't still think of yourself as a prisoner, do you? You know you don't have to stay if you don't want to." Though, he had no other place to go, so perhaps this was a meaningless gesture.

"I want to stay. That's the thing I'm not allowed to want. Well, one of the things, at least." Color pinked the tips of his ears.

With a crooked, wolfish grin, Mavash said, "What are the others?"

He looked away, and said, "So how _did_ you picture this going?" His tone was carefully light and distant.

"What?" The turn of the conversation hurt her head, and the flickering lamplight wasn't helping. She almost wished he'd taken her to his room, which was lit only by the cool glow of fungi. 

He leaned back on his arm. "This getting drunk together. I'm curious. Is this something you often think about?" There was a teasing smugness in his voice.

With a huff of laughter, Mavash settled back into his lap, allowing Jorlan to continue stroking her hair. "With more flirting. Less puking. As for your other question..." She paused, sorting through feelings she'd never dared put words to before, and resigning herself to them with a sigh. "Jorlan, I think about you... a troubling amount."

_In the depths of the cup, one finds candor._

His hand stilled, and oh, she hoped she hadn't offended him, or driven him off with her drunken forthrightness. "I thought you said I was no trouble." His tone was detached, and a smile leaked out from clenched teeth. 

Gods, but it was so easy to hurt him. She could crush his heart as easy as breathing, and if she hadn't been experienced at reading his micro-expressions, she would scarcely even notice. "A poor choice of words. Maybe... 'sbetter to say... an unexpected amount. Makes me question my own wisdom."

His hand returned to its movement over her hair, his touch raising gooseflesh on her arms. "Well, you did just drink eight glasses of wine on a nearly-empty stomach, so I question your judgment as well."

"Judgment and wisdom aren't the same, silly." She reached up and tapped him on the nose, causing him to rear back in surprise. "As for wisdom... in our line of work, attachments are unwise. And I'm very attached to you." She made a nervous laugh, as if to soften the weight of the confession.

He stayed in that position of surprise, looking at her curiously -- as if she were a trap he was trying to disarm. 

"But my judgment," she murmured, "is impeccable." This time when she reached her hand up, she smoothed it over the side of his face. She let her fingers curl in his silver hair, her thumb trace the line of his jaw. Such beauty in those features, and yet she was sure no one had ever told him that. 

But she opened her mind to him, allowing him to feel what she was feeling, the depth of her fondness.

At first, it was like touching a blank slate -- the careful brick wall he had placed between his thoughts and hers. But then, a tendril of thought reached out, as if from a distance, with a furious desperation--

\-- the door snapped shut behind his eyes again. He gave a heavy sigh, and Mavash sighed with him. 

After a long moment, he said, "You have to understand, this is the sort of thing that would get me killed back ho-- back in Menzoberranzan."

Mavash frowned a question at him.

He looked towards the corner of the room, avoiding her gaze. "Male drow do not make advances. It's too dangerous a gamble. If the interest is not returned..." He made a helpless gesture, implying all the terror his society could visit on him. "Flirting is easy; it's always plausibly deniable. But to be more serious... there is too much to lose." He put a protective hand across his chest, and closed his eyes. "I fancied it was a game I was good at playing, you see. Signaling receptiveness while veiling it in courtesy, in the language of the temple; making someone believe it was all _their_ doing, that they were seducing _me_. It was... a dangerous game, I suppose; there was always the risk of being killed for one's impudence. But that's an everyday risk, in Menzoberranzan."

Well, that answered a question she'd once asked him indirectly -- about Ilvara, and his relationship with her. "High stakes. What were you playing to win?"

He made a bitter smile. "Whatever I couldn't get by other means. Power, rank, jobs, coin. Sometimes just... the comfort of another body against my own." He made a shuddering inhalation of breath, as if the confession pained him. "My life may have been at stake, but I... never risked more than that. If you understand. That's what makes _this_ so difficult."

 _This thing between us,_ he meant. She touched a finger to his chin, prompting him to meet her gaze. She said into his mind, _Because now you care._

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out. 

_I would never use that against you,_ she added. 

"You are all bloody mad," he said, with a laugh of mingled incredulity and delight. "No sense of self-preservation at all. You go about the world doing good for people, just because it tickles you. No job too big or small. Of course you wouldn't betray me. I trus--" He caught himself abruptly before he could finish that sentence, and switched modes. _If you knew who I was, what I'd done, I would be the one betraying you._ He wrested his eyes away from Mavash in shame, but his hand clenched tight around hers.

She let the words settle into her brain. How long had he been holding onto that fear? How long had it taken him to feel safe sharing that? Into his mind she whispered, _So what have you done that's so terrible? Let me be the judge of that._

He made a huff of laughter. _My most generous justiciar. Where do I start? Gaulir made the observation that I was good at murder._ Flickers of memories -- the fight with Kinyel, Sladi's lifeblood painting an arc across his skin. _That's a... skill I've honed._ He licked his lips. _Part and parcel with being a drow who's good with a sword. You're expected to stick that sword in other people and make them dead -- all in the name of the House and Matron you serve._

Mavash nodded somberly. _But aren't we all guilty of causing death?_ She and her companions followed a goodly path, of course, but too often violence was the only language their enemies would speak. It had always troubled her to wonder how many of their enemies could have been saved -- like Jorlan was saved, or Neheedra, or even Bizzy the cave bear -- given enough time and care.

Jorlan sat silently mouthing words. _Then there are the surface raids._

Mavash's heart sank. She'd wanted so badly to believe he hadn't been made to do those things. _I gather if you hadn't, you probably would have been executed? Or something equally pleasant?_

 _Well, it would be disobeying orders,_ he said, as if that made it obvious. _Then there's... imprisoning some very fine humanoids. Putting them to hard labor, and... making callous bets about their longevity._ He gave a weak smile to Mavash, and then quickly glanced at the ceiling. 

_Unpleasant, but I can forgive even that._ Drow society was a poison that had had two hundred-odd years to infect him; she'd be surprised if he _hadn't_ learned to play dice with life and death. Impishly, she added, _I just hope you made some coin out of it._

_Alas, I bet on you as the first to break. My folly._

When Jorlan seemed to be done numbering his crimes, Mavash said, _None of that is unforgivable, you know._

"I-" he said aloud, and swallowed hard. "I have to say this aloud. As penance. There's something you need to know."

"Mm? I'm listening."

He closed his eyes. "You remember, on the ramparts of Mithril Hall, I said... I had been to the surface before, but only during the night?"

"The raids, of course."

"No-- at least, not just that." He took a deep, shaky breath. "I-- I don't know a good way to say this. I was part of the... hunting party, that captured you."

 _That_ made Mavash sit up. She didn't remember it, but then, she didn't remember anything of the kidnapping. She had been camping in the forest with several druids from her grove, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in the prison at Velkynvelve. The drow had dosed her with so much poison, so many narcotics, that her memory of the event had been thoroughly erased.

Alarm must have showed on her face, because Jorlan shrank back as if she had raised a hand to him. "No, please," she assured him. "I... I'm just-- it must have been difficult for you to tell me that."

"It's possibly the least self-preserving thing I've ever done." He made a laugh, deep in his throat, heavy with self-mockery. "Do you... do you want to know the details?"

"I remember none of it, so... yes? I think so?" Even after all these months on the run, she still hadn't pieced together the chain of events, didn't remember what had happened to her companions. Was afraid to, if she was being honest.

He bit his lip, thoughtful. "Is it-- is it possible for you to read-- I mean, it will take a long time for me to tell the story--"

 _Ah._ "I can do something of what you're suggesting. But you will need to guide me. And... allow me in." _Why don't you let me in?_ she remembered asking, when they were in Mantol-Derith. Certainly since then he had opened up -- hadn't he? "It may be more... intimately painful for you, to do it this way," she warned.

"I worry more about your pain. The person I was, then... is not the person I am now." He laughed. "And yet that was, what? Three months ago? By how you reckon it..."

"I can bear it if you can." Mavash took his hand between both of hers. 

Jorlan's gaze flicked between their joined hands and Mavash's face, questioning.

"This part isn't necessary," she said, with an indulgent smile. "But it helps."

* * *

It was not the first time Jorlan had been to the surface, nor even the tenth. But every time he emerged into a world with sky instead of stone above his head, he was dazzled by starlight. How bright it was; how even a drow child could have read by its moonlight. Strange, to feel endless sky above, a vault higher than the entire darkness below. And everything was alive with sound, too -- the chirping of insects, the sound of the wind, the scratching of branches. 

It was hard not to feel like the hunted, and not the hunters.

This was the final target for Ilvara's plan. Or, so she said; she was more unpredictable than ever. What the priestess' goals were, he couldn't say, and he'd long ago lost interest in asking. But the past fortnight had been exhausting -- they spent the dark hours raiding, and retreated with their drugged prisoners only to the Upper Dark, where others of the Velkynvelve guard would shuttle their quarry back to the prison. Jorlan's hunting party only had a scant rest before repeating the cycle over. 

Ilvara was at the back of the column with Shoor; Jorlan scouted ahead, moving as silently as he could on ground that seemed made of crumbled paper. A hundred feet ahead, through the trees, he made out a campfire, blazing bright against his darkvision. 

He gestured in Ilythiiri hand signs to the rest of his elites -- _halt, wait for my command_ \-- before creeping to the edge of the clearing. He saw five humanoids around the fire -- two moon elves among them, which made hatred grind in his stomach. No one despised the drow more than surface elves, and the feeling was entirely mutual. Three others were human, but in watching them interact, he saw none of the awkwardness he'd expected between elves and the shorter-lived races. They all spoke a language he recognized as Common, but only understood a few words of. _Pass. Story. Sleep. Fire._

By their clothing -- robes and furs and skins, ornaments of bone and antler, a silver crescent moon dangling from the neck of a moon elf woman -- he judged them druids.

He made his way back to the rest of the party and Ilvara's vulture gaze. She made a gesture in their sign language, an open-ended question.

He lowered his eyes before the priestess, and signed, "Druids. As you said. Did you wish to take all of them?" He glanced over his companions. He had only six of his elites with him -- he wasn't counting useless Shoor -- and depending on how powerful the druids were, it might be a difficult fight.

"Only the one I came here for." She stepped past Jorlan, heedless of the noise she made. "She should be recognizable. 'The white-haired stranger to dreams,'" It sounded like she was quoting poetry.

 _Or prophecy._ All of Ilvara's choices of quarry were strange like this. The priestess Asha, before they left Velkynvelve, had said, _She follows Lolth's own will_. A blessing for Ilvara, perhaps, but a curse for the rest of them.

Gazing past Ilvara, Jorlan spotted who she must mean. While common in drow, white hair wasn't often found in humans, except in great age. And yet one of the druids beside the fire had a full head of white hair, tangled in messy braids, reflecting the red of the firelight. Her features were alight with laughter as she passed a wineskin to one of the other druids. They were singing some kind of song now, the clamor covering Ilvara's noisy approach. 

Ilvara clutched her piwafwi against the night's chill. ( _Why was it always so much colder here on the surface?_ , Jorlan had many times wondered. _Must be something about the wind_ ). "I will web the east side of the camp," the priestess signed. "Give the signal when you are ready, _jabbuk_ Duskryn." An honorific, a title, but there was no honor in it, coming from a woman who had once writhed atop him and gasped out his name in pleasure.

He put aside the burn of shame, and gestured for his elites to make a semi-circle around the camp. As silent as shadows they found their places. Their body heat blazed in reds and oranges against Jorlan's darkvision, but no matter. The humans were useless in the dark, and with the campfire blazing bright, the elves wouldn't be looking into that spectrum.

Shoor did not move, but signed against Ilvara's sleeve like a helpless child. "Please don't trouble yourself, _yathrin_. Let the guard captain take care of it." He wore gloves now, to hide the fingers he was missing, as well as the acid scars left by the black pudding. 

But Jorlan knew. He had been responsible for putting them there. 

Jorlan bared his teeth at the other man. "Why are you here again, cripple?" He'd cautioned Ilvara against it -- someone needed to stay behind to defend Velkynvelve against the demon incursion; why not Shoor? But she would not easily be parted from her newest lover, and was equally insistent than both she and Jorlan needed to be on the surface for this maneuver.

Shoor tipped his head. "Ilvara requires my services. I am more than a weapon to her." His smile was beatific and brimming with rancor. He knew Jorlan was responsible for his injury, too. But there was nothing he could do about it; to tattle to Ilvara would reflect worse on him. 

"I suppose you must be very good with your tongue and your seven remaining fingers, then." Jorlan turned away, stalking off towards his task. 

Ilvara spit after him, "Watch your own tongue, _jabbuk_ , lest you lose it."

As if she hadn't put them at each other's throats. 

But there was still the matter at hand. The webbing, Jorlan judged, should cut off the two elves and one of the humans until his elites could wade in there. That left only the white-haired woman and another human on the west side of the campfire. Jorlan gestured one of his lieutenants into position behind the man, and as quietly as he could, moved into position to take the white-haired woman himself. 

He gave the signal to Ilvara. 

Spidersilk, the color of moonlight, flew through the air silently, and a web covered the east side of the camp, prompting cries of surprise and warning. Three of the druids were caught in the webbing, frantically trying to free themselves, but growing more entangled in the process. In the flurry of activity, Jorlan's lieutenant slid in behind the final human, drawing his blade silently across the man's throat. He died with a wet gurgle, falling to the ground. 

Cries of alarm turned into panicked screams. 

Jorlan wasn't allowed the luxury of a killing blow, so instead he threw a dagger coated with sleeping poison. The woman had leaped to her feet at the attack, presenting an easy target. The dagger buried itself shallowly in her shoulder, and Jorlan followed it, tackling her and pinning her arms to her sides. She was taller than him by nearly a foot, but he was experienced at using his enemy's strength against them. In a moment he had her arms twisted behind her back.

The narcotic acted fast, but not, it seemed, fast enough. Belying her frail form, the druid was still upright, glaring sidelong at Jorlan, cursing him in Common. Her companions in the webbing were shouting at her in a language he didn't understand; one of them had transformed into a bear -- Jorlan had been warned their quarry might do that -- and was attempting to use its greater strength to free itself from the web. He was still unsuccessful as the remaining five elites moved in, hacking through webs and limbs alike, swords glittering like stars. Blood painted the spidersilk a dark red; screams tore from raw throats and were joined by the distant baying of wolves.

Pain shot through Jorlan's foot; the white-haired woman had stomped on his booted foot. He cursed under his breath and shuffled backward, barely managing to keep his grip on his prisoner. 

And then, she melted away in his arms.

Jorlan was momentarily confused, until movement on the forest floor caught his eye -- a spider the size of his hand, brown and mottled with white. Large by surface standards, perhaps, but just the right size for a drow matron's pet.

Druids were shapechangers -- yes. And if what he recalled about them was true...

The spider skittered away from him, its movement impeded by the debris on the forest floor. As Ilvara careened to a stop behind him, Jorlan reached out his foot and squashed the creature under his boot.

The body of the spider transformed immediately into that of the white-haired woman. She gave Jorlan one more panicked look, then fell quiet. The rise of her chest slowed as the narcotic took its effect. 

Jorlan lowered his boot from the druid's side, taking a steadying breath.

Something struck his face, and he stumbled back a step. He looked up to find Ilvara staring at him with hatred in her eyes, her tentacle rod raised. "How dare you strike one of Quarval'sharess' creatures," she hissed at him. 

It wasn't really a spider, he wanted to argue, and they wouldn't have captured the druid without his quick thinking. But saying that was a good way to get struck again -- and with the venomous end of the rod, this time -- so he dropped to a knee in supplication. "I am grievously sorry, _yathrin_ ," he murmured. "I pray that you and the Queen will be merciful in light of the result."

"Impudent male. I suppose you did get me what I wanted." A hand rested on Jorlan's head, fingers twisting in his hair until his scalp burned. "You should be more cautious. House Duskryn can ill afford more disfavor."

Rage and shame burned his cheeks and quickened his tongue. He buried it in the same place he buried all such feelings. "Yes, mistress," was his only reply.

* * *

After the vision faded away, Mavash sat silent for a long time, her lips set in a line, her brow furrowed. 

_You've done it, Jorlan,_ his thoughts mocked him. _You've finally managed to push her away. Look how disgusted she is at how unmoved you were by murder, how cruelly you brought her under your thumb. The spite you showed Shoor, and how you bowed and scraped to Ilvara. If she doesn't already think you a pathetic, hateful creature, she will now._

A searing pain grew in his throat. He looked down at his hands, still joined with Mavash's, and felt the mockery, the pity in that touch. He pulled away before it could be taken from him.

Mavash's gaze moved from her empty hands to his eyes. "Galvan. Etheniel. Avra. Sethendir."

"I-" Jorlan began, trying to divine meaning in the sounds, his panic growing.

"Those were their names. The druids your companions murdered."

"That I murdered," he blurted out. "That is what you're thinking, isn't it?"

She gave him a sad smile. "You're not nearly as good as reading my mind as you think you are." Her fingers worked at the edge of the blanket, a nervous gesture. "Galvan -- the man beside me -- was from Daggerford. He had just passed his apprenticeship, and was coming to join my grove in Neverwinter Wood. The two elves, Etheniel and Sethendir. They were younger than you are. Brother and sister. They liked--" She stopped short, wiping at tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm sorry. Etheniel loved the tawdriest kind of entertainment. Used to tell me how she went to see the show _Winter in Neverwinter_ before it was banned in Waterdeep." She looked earnestly at Jorlan. "That means nothing to you, I know, but you have to be pretty raunchy--"

He took her by the bicep, stopping her mid-sentence. "I was their commander. It was my responsibility." _My fault._ "I could have ordered them to be less deadly, could have taken you all as prisoners. Light, we certainly could have use more general labor in Velkynvelve." He winced. That didn't sound any better. 

The truth of it was, it was easy to kill, and he had done what was easy and what would keep him out of Ilvara's disfavor another moment. 

Mavash waited a long moment before countering, "Wasn't it Ilvara's responsibility, ultimately?"

He was silent at that, uncertain how to reply. 

"It was," she insisted. "Even if your priestesses put the blame on you, they're the ones who give the orders, and woe to anyone who disobeys them. Am I right?"

Another long silence followed. Jorlan's throat felt thick with emotion. "You don't understand," he choked out at last. "It's all like that. My whole life. One memory after another, with me a dull spectator, never raising a finger to save anyone but myself. That's the poison filling my veins."

She raised a hand to cup the side of his face. "No one chooses to be poisoned. How can I hold that against you?"

And yet, hadn't he done just that, less than a week ago in Mantol-Derith? Or very nearly, at least. "You are too-- too gods-bedamned _good_ ," he growled, which was the only thing he could think to say.

"Mmm. Let's see if it's contagious." And with that, she tipped his chin up and kissed him.

For a moment, his mind went blank, utterly failing to process what was happening. Then it dawned on him -- her lips were on his, warm and soft and pliant, and light, it had been _so long_ since anyone had touched him like this, and never with this much care. His hand found the back of her neck, and his lips pressed hungrily against hers, begging admittance-- 

She pulled away, and the heat of her embrace was replaced with his own cold mortification. "I'm sorry," he murmured, and wiped a hand across his mouth. "You caught me by surprise."

"A rare delight," she said, and waved him away. "It's nothing you did. Right now my mouth tastes like half-digested wine, and it's not something you'd like to share."

"Ah, of course." He felt heat rising in his cheeks. Light, he was behaving like a callow youth.

Mavash was eyeing him assessingly. Then she crawled up to the head of the bed, stretched out her legs, and beckoned him toward her. "Come here. Lie back."

Warily he leaned back against her, his head falling to the cleft of her shoulder and neck, his feet reclining on the bed. She wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him close. Somehow despite her bony frame, her body was soft as a pillow beneath his back. His muscles relaxed as surely as if he were sinking into a hot bath, and he heard himself give an involuntary sigh.

Mavash, her mouth beside his ear, murmured, "Thank you. For telling me what happened to my companions. It saddens me, but -- it's better to know than not. The world can't hurt them any more, and they will return to the forest."

A romantic vision, that. "I wish I could believe in that sort of poetic afterlife."

"For your sister?"

He winced. Why did she have to tear at that old wound? But It was his fault for even bringing it up, wasn't it? "For myself." _The only person I can save._

"It's not poetic," she went on as if he hadn't spoken. "It's real life. Their remains will feed the earth -- predators first, then maggots and mushrooms and the roots of trees. Did you know," she said, and her voice became breathy with wonder, "that on the surface, underneath our feet, are thousand of miles of mycelium -- the roots of mushrooms? A greater distance than I walked to come to Neverwinter Wood, on a brittle, two-ply thread spun of life and decay." She kissed his shoulder, sighed into his hair. "I try to remember that death is all around us, but it can't destroy us in any real sense."

The words stunned him to silence. The sardonic part of his mind was ticking away, trying to find the humor, but he found himself at the end of his schemes of a sudden. 

"I guess what I'm saying is--I forgive you, Jorlan. No, rather -- there's nothing to forgive. You did what two hundred years of training had taught you to do. You survived. And I'm happier for it."

"I'll endeavor to continue, then," he murmured. He let his head loll to the side, his nose resting against the skin of her neck. After three days' travel, none of them were exactly clean, but the smell of her body's musk was... not unpleasant. 

"I didn't mean it when I said you smelled of wet fur," he murmured against her skin. He didn't remember if he'd told her that, but it was a joke he'd definitely made in the privacy of his own head. To himself, he added, _if you kiss her neck, then neither of you needs to worry about tasting wine sick--_

The vibration of her laugh tickled his lips. "What sweet things you say. I'm glad? Although right now I imagine I smell of brimstone and old sweat."

He felt languid -- tipsier, perhaps, than he had thought. Or maybe he was just at ease enough to appreciate it now. And yet she seemed more sober than ever. Perhaps that was the nature of her famous alcohol tolerance.

His languor demanded honesty, that luxury he'd not often been allowed. "Did you fancy Sladis? Before you knew he was a cannibal?"

"Of course not!" Her reply came too quick, and from his vantage point, Jorlan could see color creeping up her neck. "I just... really like mushrooms."

"You're a phenomenally bad liar," he whispered, without rancor.

"I-" She looked down at her hands. "Maybe I did a little, but it would have passed in time. He reminded me of someone. Sethendir. The one I mentioned."

Jorlan made a snort, though he felt a sensation in the pit of the stomach like he was falling, falling. "I see. I should probably stop murdering people you fancy."

She tipped up his chin to look at him. Her voice grown husky, she said. "Or threatening to." Her fingers traced his lips, leaving sparks in their wake. "There's one I couldn't bear to lose."

Those fingers were an irresistible target, and so despite his better judgment he kissed them. They were rougher than his lips, the hands of someone who worked with earth and roots. But the momentary connection set lightning arcing between them--

He was looking in her eyes -- blue, he noted -- and he never wanted to move from that gaze of trust--

( _jal khaless zhah waela_ )

\--but he also wanted to know why she had said what she said in that faerzress grove. The thing that had cut him like blades. 

_The only one you could ever love--_

Why did it stab him? How could you stab something that wasn't there?

She touched her fingers to her lips, a kiss by proxy. "You aren't heartless. No matter how much you want to believe it." 

He let his head fall back on her shoulder. "My thoughts are leaking again."

Mavash made a heavy sigh. "I knew as soon as I said it how cruel and wrong it was. I like teasing you, but sometimes I don't know when to stop."

"Am I so easy for you to read?" he murmured.

"You looked the same as when you surrendered to me in the Upper Dark. Blank. Hopeless. Wanting to disappear entirely." She kissed his forehead. "That's how I knew."

They lay silently like that for a time. Jorlan heard Mavash's breath ease into sleep, and the crackle of fire in the next room, and the beat of his own heart. He tried to slow his breathing into trance, but a thought niggled at him, evading capture.

"Mavash, I--" he began.

( _jal khaless zhah waela_ )

"I trust you," he said to nobody, and then closed his own eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Jal khaless zhah waela_ is a Drow proverb meaning "all trust is foolish," with _khaless_ being the word for "trust."


	8. Zhaunil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Show us," she said, closing her eyes, "how the Lords of the Abyss came to the Underdark."_
> 
> In which the heroes learn what they need from the Gravenhollow. 
> 
> Or: in which Mavash has premonitions, Jorlan is forced to be astonishingly candid, and Vizeran is an arch-bitch about Gromph Baenre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, this chapter is minorly spoilery through the Gravenhollow.

In her dream, Mavash was running from something, through the gnarled, stunted evergreens of the Sossal tundra. Of course she wasn't dressed sensibly -- when was she ever? -- and she was barefoot, her feet burning with cold from the snow. Above, the aurora borealis glowed a sickly green hue.

There was something in the sky above her, chasing her. Backlit by the aurora, it cast a monstrous shadow over her, blackening the needles of the pines on the distant mountain. It moved on skeletal wings, a rattling sound like the wind through a ship's rigging.

The rattling turned into a deep rushing sound as the shadow dove toward her--

"Mavash?" A pounding noise. "We're going to be late."

Mavash awoke with a start. It took her a long moment to realize she was in her room in the Gravenhollow guest quarters. Her head strobed with pain every time she moved it. 

The whole night came back to her in a flood, from discussing wine to puking all over Jorlan's boots to--

Wait. Hadn't he been here when she had fallen asleep? He was gone now, leaving only a faint trace of his scent -- whetstone oil and an earthy musk. She touched the bearskin where he had sat, as if hoping to find his warmth remained.

"Mavash? I'm coming in." The voice was Umbra's, she now recognized. 

Before Mavash could warn her off, the sorcerer stepped in. "You're still in bed," she said flatly. "Overindulged a bit, I see?" 

"A bit more than a bit," Mavash groaned. "It's nearly time to meet with the librarians, isn't it?"

Umbra nodded. "Less than an hour, I'm afraid. You've already missed breakfast."

The thought of food made her stomach threaten to upend itself again. "I think I'll live," she said, her voice thin with suppressed pain. "Where is--"

"He's waiting for you," Umbra said, needing no further explanation. "Says he put you to bed last night, and that you were _quite_ incomprehensible. Personally I was expecting a few more juicy details, but I guess a gentleman never kisses and tells."

The sorcerer winked and turned to go, but Mavash held up a hand to stop her. "Why did they send you? To wake me, I mean?"

"Because they figured that if you wouldn't come willingly, I could chivvy you with an bit of cold?" She summoned an orb of ice to her hand -- just a trick of prestidigitation, but hinting at the greater spell. 

With a smirk, Umbra let herself out.

Mavash was still weighing the cost versus the benefit of getting out of bed when she remembered the dream. Her veins turned to icewater, colder than anything the sorcerer had threatened.

Kalashtar didn't dream. But, as she'd once told Jorlan, her quori _did_ use her hours of sleep to deliver warnings.

* * *

The librarians' giant-sized audience hall was too cold and bright for Mavash, who alternated between shivering and nauseous sweating. Truly, there was no more light than a few driftglobes floating close to the distant ceiling, but she had a new appreciation for how Jorlan must feel at any brightness more than the light of a candle.

He stood beside her, looking surprisingly put together. Apparently he had found somewhere to bathe in those four hours she'd spent snoring. He wore the formal clothes from Gauntlgrym -- she suspected they were now the only clothes he owned -- but they had been laundered and mended. His hair was brushed back in a neat queue, and gleamed in the light of the driftglobes. 

Honestly, she felt very shabby beside him, with her ripped travel clothes and tangled hair.

There was no furniture small enough for them to sit on, so they stood to greet the stone giants. Something about their looming, genderless forms inspired Mavash to lower her head respectfully. Glancing to her side, she saw her companions do the same. 

The middle stone giant stepped forward. "Welcome to the Gravenhollow," he said, and his voice was the grinding of a mill wheel. "I am Urmas, Keeper of the Present." He gestured to his left. "This is my brother, Ulthar, Keeper of the Past." And to his right: "This is Ustova, my sister, Keeper of the Future."

He paused, and the silence was uneasy. Mavash eyed Gaulir -- their designated speaker -- wondering if he should step forward.

After a long moment, Urmas continued, arching one rocky eyebrow, "I assume you have not come for any idle purpose, nor do I suffer that. Please, speak of your purpose, and we will tell you if we can satisfy that curiosity."

Gaulir bowed. "Librarians, thank you for your audience. We are united in asking one question: how and why the Lords of the Abyss have come to the Underdark, and how they might be sent back."

Another long pause, marked by a faint tremor in Urmas' expression. 

After a time, it was Ulthar who replied, making a small bow of service. "Such matters fall within my domain, and I can, of course, assist you with that intriguing question. I feel there is much we librarians can learn from your study, as well."

"Be careful what you promise, brother," Urmas murmured. "The future is our sister's domain. And anyway, that sounds like two questions to me. You have been told the rules, yes?"

"It is a question with multiple parts, yes," Umbra said, stepping forward. "But the two are intertwined. We cannot plug the gap they entered through if we don't know where it is."

"Hm. Perhaps." The Speaker of the Present held his nose high, considering. "You should be aware that what you research will determine the length of time you must spend with us. If you wish to emerge together from the Gravenhollow, then you must be united in purpose. And yet..." Here he paused -- almost, it seemed, for dramatic effect. "I sense not all of you are interested in waking from the dream the Lords of the Abyss have inflicted on this world."

His eyes fell on Neheedra. "Neheedra the medusa, cursed by Ogrimak's Bane. You do not come with the same purpose as your fellows, I know. You smell of ambition -- a desire to understand your condition, and ultimately to cure it. You would dearly love to set your eyes on the one who inspires such swelling in your heart -- a heart that was once made of stone."

Neheedra lowered her head, looking shy -- though the snakes of her hair belied that, whipping wildly from side to side. "I do, Keeper. I'm not hiding that. My continued existence like this pains the both of us. I would see again -- or at least know that I cannot be cured, and be resigned to it."

It was Ustova who spoked next, her voice no more feminine or less raspy than her brothers. "As my brother said, this means you will be separated from your beloved when you leave this place." Her eyes fell significantly on Lux. "Is that acceptable to you both?"

Lux glared daggers back at Ustova, looking as if they might say no, and spit in the Keeper's face for asking. But Neheedra's hand brushed against theirs, and the coldness in their face melted away. "Yes," they said, with a sigh of resignation. "We have discussed it."

Neheedra bowed and stepped back, leading Lux away by the hand.

"I speak not only of that one, sister," Urmas said coldly. This time, his eyes fell on the figure at Mavash's side. "Jorlan Duskryn, betrayer. Speak your purpose in coming here."

Jorlan looked up from his feet, startled. "Keepers, I don't know what to say. My purpose is the same as my companions."

Ulthar tilted his head, saying, "And yet you are different than them. You exist within our domain. You are tangible. Perhaps that has clouded our perception. Tell us how you came here, that we might understand better."

For a brief moment Jorlan hesitated. "Well. My companions were prisoners of the drow in the city of Velkynvelve, prepared as sacrifices to the Dark Mother. I was their jailor, but I decided to free them, for... personal reasons. They made their escape, and I chased them across the Underdark. They were stronger than me, and defeated me. But they foolishly spared my life, and so I follow them now, charming them into complacency while waiting for the right moment to betray them." 

Mavash looked up at those alarming words. One corner of Jorlan's mouth was creased with a smile, though, which eased -- nearly -- all her worries. "I don't believe a word of," she said, shaking her head. 

"Which will make my revenge even sweeter and more unexpected, won't it?" He met Mavash's gaze, humor flashing like fire in his red eyes. Damn, but his sense of humor was even more questionable than her own. 

"You waste our time!" Urmas howled. The ground beneath him shook; the whole library skittered to the side as if it had feet. "You mock the work of the Gravenhollow by your glibness, and you answer my brother's question with a lie."

The smile melted from Jorlan's face, and he lowered his eyes again. It reminded Mavash of the look he had held in the memories of Ilvara -- the look of fearful subservience. 

Idiotically, Mavash thought, _Don't hurt my sweet boy._

"Truly?" His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. "They spared me, with a mercy I don't understand or deserve. I have no home to return to, no family who will claim me. I am, as you say, a traitor to my people. I am furthermore a danger to my companions here in the Underdark, simply by existing. And yet... they have given me everything I now possess, down to the clothes I'm wearing." He gestured down at his body before continuing, "What I wish to understand is... why."

Mavash felt her throat thicken with nameless emotion. She took Jorlan's hand, lacing her fingers with his and giving a comforting squeeze. To her relief, he squeezed back.

Urmas was silent and still.

It was Ustova who broke the silence, amusement cracking her stony visage. "I am pleased to say that will not find the answer you seek in this library. You may study the Lords of the Abyss with your friends, and you may depart with them." She turned her attention to Ulthar. "If you will, brother, show them to the Archives of the Past."

* * *

_The past is a crystal, for it can be seen from many facets yet it always remains the same._

The words over the door of the Archives of the Past -- translated from Dwarvish, courtesy of Ambergris -- rang in Mavash's head as she held the stonespeaker crystal, warm in her hand.

It wasn't the first of the type she'd seen -- there had been the one they'd been gifted by the Stonespeakers of Gracklstugh, of course. But this one had a different purpose.

Mavash set the crystal into its stone pedestal at the center of the archive. She and her companions joined hands around it, with Jorlan to Mavash's right, and Lux to her left. Normally only Mavash would receive the vision, as the one who attuned to it, but with her telepathy she hoped to share it with her companions. 

The warm of their presence, her hands in theirs, eased some of her trepidation at what she was about to undertake.

"Show us," she said, closing her eyes, "how the Lords of the Abyss came to the Underdark."

* * *

Pinpricks of light glow red in a dim room. 

Eventually, the lights resolve into the shapes of red candles, outlining a circle drawn of chalk and salt. Mavash doesn't know much about wizarding magic, but she recognizes a summoning circle when she sees one. 

Around it is a miasma of faerzress, swirling auroras of green and pink and gold, like the lights that sit in the sky above Sossal. 

Standing outside the circle is a drow wizard, clad in black. The wizard's hands draw patterns on the air; he is conducting the symphony of faerzress around him, his sonorous chanting providing a harmony. There is a tension in the air, palpable even through the lens of the vision. And yet, the wizard seems unworried, confident -- perhaps smug.

Behind him is the outline of a city made of tiers upon tiers of stalagmites. One glows red along its whole height with a fiery light.

The tension grows, and fear creeps into the wizard's eyes. His movements become more erratic, more crazed; he reaches for more salt, more candles, his spellbooks. He is met only with a woman's laughter -- deep, dark, and mocking.

The ground beneath him trembles and splits asunder. Fear turns to horror in the wizard's eyes, and he throws up a hand to protect himself. 

In his eyes are reflected a fiery, mandrill-headed fiend.

* * *

Mavash opened her eyes, taking a gasping breath. "Demogorgon."

"Indeed," Gaulir said, his hand on the hilt of Dawnbringer. Clearly the encounter with the fiend in Sloobludop still weighed heavily upon him.

Mavash let fall the hands of her companions -- or tried to. Jorlan still clung to her with tenacity.

She turned a questioning eye to him. "Are you--?"

He met her eyes, puzzled. "You do know-- ah. No, you don't." Reluctantly he pulled his hand away, pinching the bridge of his nose. "That was Gromph Baenre. And, judging by the spire of Narbondel, that city was Menzoberranzan."

Mavash opened her mouth to make a reply, but no sound came out. 

"I'm sorry?" Umbra tried first. "Who are we talking about?"

Jorlan held one hand across his chest protectively; with the other he gestured at the crystal. "He's the archmage of Menzoberranzan, and a scion of the first house of the city." He gave a bitter laugh. "Matron Baenre's trained spider." 

"You forgot to mention he's a complete imbecile," another voice joined in.

Mavash spun around, finding Vizeran had joined them. With his robes trailing on the floor, he seemed to float into the room. Hells, maybe he _was_ levitating, if only to seem taller.

Jorlan made a wry smile. "He's just upset because Gromph outdid him at Sorcere."

That lit a fire in Vizeran's eyes. "He most certainly did not. That is a lie he spread after my exile. As if it wasn't bad enough to brand me a heretic and set the Council upon me! My house never would have been destroyed by those upstarts--"

"No one wants to hear about what happened seven hundred years ago, old man. Do you want to hear about the vision, or not?"

"Seven hundred years ago, my grey arse. It merely some two centuries ago." His eyes narrowed at his son. "Just about the time your mother cornered me and plied me with jhinrae--"

"Now I _really_ don't want to hear it," Jorlan rejoined, head in palm. 

There was a certain entertainment to watching the two of them spar, and it gave Mavash an opportunity to observe the similarities between them -- the shape of the nose, the straightness of the hair, the same red eyes. 

The same clever smile, sharp as a knife.

Without the cue, she would never have guessed them related -- she was rubbish at telling drow apart. But now that it had been pointed out to her, she couldn't help but notice how alike they were.

But it was time to end to this familial farce. "We saw this... Gromph, performing some kind of ritual involving the faerzress. At the last minute, something went wrong and... the ground split, and we saw the face of Demogorgon."

"Don't forget the laughing," added Lux, in a quiet voice. "Did you notice the laughing?"

Vizeran and Jorlan looked gravely at each other. They did not speak, but their hands moved in rapid motion, like two artists at canvases. Mavash had seen their captors at Velkynvelve use this language of signs when they wished not to be overheard.

At last, Vizeran made a cutting motion through the air. "No. We must not speak that name here. As I've said, the walls have ears, in a very real sense." 

"Is there any significance to the faerzress?" Umbra asked. "It's grown in intensity just since our escape from Velkynvelve. It seems to prevent us from using our magic rather than enhancing it."

Vizeran's shoulders fell, and for a moment he looked the old man Jorlan accused him of being. "That always was Gromph," he murmured, "treating forces he didn't understand as his playthings. No doubt Matron Baenre was standing just behind him, pulling his puppet strings, too. One does not make excuses to a matron of the Council."

"But to what end?" Gaulir interjected. "He couldn't honestly wish to bring a Lord of the Abyss into his city, could he? Did he think he could control it? That seems foolhardy, even for an overconfident drow archmage." As if suddenly realizing his audience, he added, "No offense."

But Vizeran was gazing at -- or perhaps through -- the stonespeaker crystal, lost in thought. "I have my suspicions," he said at last. "But let's not speak further of them here. Find me at the Tower of Araj."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite some time has passed since this session, and my notes were shoddy, so I fabricated more here than I usually do for our sessions. While it didn't happen precisely like this, I can assure you that Jorlan's moment of candor is true to the actual session.
> 
>  _Zhaunil_ is the Drow word for "knowledge."


	9. Dalninil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mavash's premonition comes true, but the heroes are prepared. Jorlan is (maybe?) still full of secrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter for you tonight! I'm skipping back in time from the chapter named "Siltrin" -- this one takes place immediately after "Khaless."
> 
> Very mildly spoilery re: the Tower of Araj? But honestly this bit was so different from RAW...

Mavash and her companions lingered several more days in the Gravenhollow, learning what more they could of the arrival of the lords of the Abyss.

From more mundane sources than the stonespeaker crystals -- those mortal informants Vizeran had mentioned -- they learned additional facts about Demogorgon's arrival. How the demon prince had been summoned into Menzoberranzan's Clawrift; how it tore its way out, severely weakened by the ordeal. 

How the other princes arrived in the Underdark -- at different locations, to different ends, but all roughly simultaneously. 

More personally alarming to Mavash, they heard rumors from the Wormwrithings of creatures of shadow with too many eyes -- waking dreamstuff -- preying on travelers. It seemed il-Lashtavar, or its minions, had found their way to the Underdark as well, still hungering for Mavash's quori soul.

Nonetheless, she did not suffer another dream while in the Gravenhollow. But the unease from her last one lingered, long after her hangover had passed. 

On the morning they were to leave for the Tower of Araj, she sat cross-legged on her bed in meditation, bringing to mind the magics she would need for the day. Quickly enough she prepared the spells she regularly traveled with, but she found herself pausing over what she would need for the journey ahead. 

The truth of it was, she really had no idea what to expect, or even how long the trip would be. They had been told that the Gravenhollow had the power to release them wherever it desired in the Underdark (It? Or was it the will of the librarians?) She also was unsure what expect from the Tower, or from Vizeran -- or even if they could trust him.

The vision that haunted her did nothing to put her at ease.

She found a leather bag at the bottom of her satchel, used for various spell components, and emptied it onto the bed. An array of wooden sticks spilled out, tumbling one over another. 

Mavash picked up one at random, carved from a yellow birch twig. Even dried, it still smelled faintly of wintergreen, a homesick smell. She turned the wooden stub in her fingers, running her thumb across the symbol on the back -- a letter in the Quori alphabet, roughly equivalent to the letter "b" in Common. Each twig was a different wood with different symbols engraved upon it. 

These were divination chits, and each druid was encouraged to make their own, with symbols that were personally meaningful to them. While Mavash had opted to use the traditional ordering of trees -- most of them didn't exist in her homeland of Sossal -- using the Quori alphabet instead of the Druidic one was her own touch. While she preferred to forget most of what had happened before she left home at the age of sixteen, she could not forget the quori animating her. 

She returned the chits to the bag, and on the bearskin beneath her, she drew a glowing green circle with a touch of druidcraft. She then upended the bag, letting the chits fall where they would.

Only two chits fell within the circle. The first was easy to recognize, even without the letter -- it was the long black-red spine of a hawthorn. She remembered the thicket she had crawled through to harvest that. She'd emerged scratched and bleeding, but victorious -- anointing the thumb-sized thorn with her own blood.

Some called this rune "terrible" or "difficult night;" Mavash had learned to read it as representing obstacles and entanglements. 

Interesting.

The other chit was a springy twig from a shrub, its bark a warm brown color. She'd learned it was called swamp laurel, and it grew in wet places, and kept its leathery leaves through the winter. This one had always occasioned conversation among the druids of her grove -- the original formulation, passed down from elven druids of Cormanthyr, called for a plant called "heather," which didn't grow in Neverwinter Wood. The archdruid of Mavash's grove had shrugged and suggest she use any evergreen plant that seemed appropriate. This is what she had settled on.

This rune's meaning was simple: _earth._ To a druid, it was all things passionate, powerful, and magical.

 _Obstacle of earth._ It was an interesting combination of symbols. It took Mavash several more moments of contemplation to figure out what it meant.

 _Earthbind._ It was a spell she had learned a long time ago, but never had occasion to use. It was designed to bring flying creatures to the ground, useful when a druid couldn't wildshape into a flying form.

What creatures in the Underdark flew? Her mind readily supplied a few: chasme. Those corespawn. Darkmantles, after a fashion. Dragons, too, although she'd seen few of those -- just Vaeros, and Themberchaud, his supposed sire. Oh, and the shadow dragon in the Rockblight--

All right. Message received.

She ran her thumb over the two runes as she committed the spell to mind.

* * *

The Gravenhollow disgorged them at the eastern end of the Wormwrithings. Vizeran had passed on directions to Jorlan, who led the way. He was not -- as he frequently reminded them -- any kind of ranger, but still he knew the paths of the Underdark the best among them. Especially here, closer to Menzoberranzan than they had yet been in their travels.

Within less than a day's march, they arrived at the edge of large cavern, stretching out some three hundred feet to the east and dipping down into a valley. The space was full of jagged crystal and mica outcroppings, glowing blue in the ethereal light of fungi. A set of terraced steps led down to the floor of the valley, and in its center stood a multi-story structure carved from a massive stalagmite. 

The Tower of Araj.

It had no entrance to speak of. Vine-like stone cords spiraled up the sides of the stalagmite, and more of the crystals dotted its side. It drew Mavash's gaze upward to the dome of the cavern above.

She heard the beating of wings and the rattling of bone before she saw it. A gasp escaped her lips, and her hand flew to her mouth. 

It was the creature from her vision.

This... _thing_ looked like the decayed remnants of a dragon. Tattered, but not forlorn -- it was clearly animated by some eldritch power, allowing it to fly despite the gaping holes in its wings. Lightning coursed beneath its ribs, visible through ragged holes in its flesh. The shadow it cast was massive, moving across the valley.

Towards them. 

Gaulir made a low rumbling deep in his throat, a familiar sound of displeasure. "A dracolich. One of my kind has sought disgrace instead of death."

"Is that... exactly what it sounds like?" Umbra asked. "A dragon, and a lich?"

The paladin gave a curt nod "A powerful foe. But Bahamut is mightier." 

It was then that Mavash noticed the second danger. Standing on a raised step -- where a doorway would be, if the tower possessed one -- was a creature she had only heard legends of. It had a head that looked like an octopus, and its skin was mauve and glistening in the fungal light. The rest of its body was covered in dark clothing, except for its skeletal hands.

A mind flayer. And this one seemed to be undead as well. Mavash's pulse struck up a rhythm of war. 

The mind flayer looked to Mavash, and in an instant his thoughts invaded hers. _Our business is with the wizard deVir._ Its psychic voice was like the whispering of dried leaves. _Leave, and we will not harm you. Interfere, and there will be violence. If there is violence, we will obliterate you._

Mavash clutched at her temples, the intrusive thoughts battering her like a migraine. Her voice a whisper, she relayed the message to her companions. 

"There will be violence regardless," Gaulir said. He drew Dawnbringer, filling the space with light. "I won't allow undead to live."

Jorlan -- who had been standing close to the paladin -- flinched, raising a hand to cover his eyes. "Warn me when you're going to do that next time."

Mavash remembered something she had read or seen in the Gravenhollow -- how a mind flayer colony east of Menzoberranzan had gone silent. Undead were the domain of the Abyssal lord Orcus, and this seemed likely to be his doing. 

_I'm sorry,_ she conveyed to the mind flayer, _but Vizeran deVir isn't taking audiences today._

* * *

Mavash knew how she was meant to use the spell she had prepared. And yet, it was against her better nature to linger in her frail kalashtar form. 

Already Jorlan had disappeared -- and already Mavash had whispered _don't die_ after him, as was now her habit.

"Don't die again, I think you mean," Gaulir said with a grin, before clicking his heels and putting the boots of speed to work.

A sigh of tremendous forbearance came out of the shadows. 

Gaulir and Lux leaped from stone to stone down to the valley floor, approaching the shadow of the dragon. It felt _wrong_ not to follow them, not to take the vanguard position.

And yet Mavash still had no idea how her allies intended to _reach_ the dracolich -- perhaps they hoped that Umbra, crouched behind a rocky outcropping, would bring it down in a rain of fire.

 _Or perhaps they're depending on me._ Better she not let them down, then.

But first she needed to be close enough to cast her spell. She ran ahead to a boulder, her legs pumping wildly beneath her. She felt awkward and ungainly when she considered how smoothly her moorbounder would have covered the distance.

She dove behind the rock and into range. The dracolich was nearing, hovering above Gaulir and Lux. Vaeros had taken to the air to engage the dracolich -- though it hurt Mavash's heart to see his tiny shadow against the bulk of the ancient undead dragon. Even Ambergris was in motion, nearly on Mavash's heels.

Mavash fixed her gaze on the dracolich, and uttered words in Quori under her breath: _To the bones of the earth, bind with root and thorn the thing that flies._ She added, because it seemed appropriate: _Bring the serpent home to its den beneath the mountain._

Yellow bands of light wrapped the dracolich, tearing from it a scream -- of fury or pain, unknown. It reared in midair, fighting the bonds. 

Mavash held her breath, hoping the bonds would hold. The dragon began to coast towards the ground, its wings locked in a rictus.

But as it glided closer, fear gripped her chest as tightly as the bonds on the dracolich. The creature was going to devour her; its terrible lightning would stop her heart. She would feel her own bones crunch in its teeth; she would smell her own death in the cavern of its fetid mouth. 

She clutched her hand to her chest, calling on Vash to protect her, chanting the words against fear she had been taught. She felt the heat of the quori's presence in her body, but it was not enough to banish the chill of fear. She had made an opening in the creature's defenses, but she could no more make use of it than she could reverse time.

She sobbed, tears rolling in fat drops down her face. Her concentration broken, the spell failed.

The dragon sloughed off its bonds and turned to Mavash, its eyes full of malice. It inhaled and--

It was like teleporting, what happened next -- suddenly she was ten feet to the right of where she had been, on her hands and knees, her body wracked with pain. She coughed, and sparks of lightning fell from her mouth like blood. She was grateful she carried no iron weapons; they would have become lodestones at her touch. 

She tried to stand, and fell again. She was so weak, and she smelled her own hair singed, her life force leaking out of her through some hidden crack. Vaguely she was aware of Umbra behind her, and Ambergris ahead. She wanted to call to them for help, but her voice came out as a whisper and crackle.

She lay there for she know not how long, the cave ceiling spinning above her. 

A brush of a hand on her shoulder. Gentle grey fingers shrouded in gauntlets lifted her head, and she heard a bottle being unstoppered. A sweet liquid she recognized as a healing potion flowed over her lips and down her throat, warming her like alcohol. The fingers ghosted over the line of her jaw, brushed away a tear, and were gone.

In a few moments, Mavash recovered herself enough to stand. The ground where the dracolich's breath had landed still sparked and smoked, and not twenty feet ahead of Mavash lie Ambergris, unconscious. 

So much for her beast forms. She sighed, making a gesture in the air, the somatic component of a spell she so rarely cast. " _Cure the ails of allies and friends alike,_ " she whispered to herself in Quori. She felt healing suffuse her body and flicker golden over Ambergris, and Umbra behind her gave a call of victory.

In the air beside the tower something else was hovering -- a small drow woman, hands flickering with magic. Fire sprouted from her fingers, growing into a beam that hit the dracolich square in the chest. It fell the remaining dozen feet to the ground, and already Mavash's companions were upon it.

Mavash didn't know there were female drow wizards, but that definitely was not clerical magic.

Without a moments the drow woman had turned to the mind flayer lich on the "doorstep." She called out something ragged and hoarse in Drow and the monster... vanished. 

A great, anguished cry came from the dracolich. Its wings rattled and sparks leaped out from it in a circle. Gaulir and Lux were thrown violently back, outlined by galvanic coronas.

But it was done, and the drow woman descended to the ground beside the fallen dracolich.

Mavash hurried over to her companions, helping Ambergris to her feet along the way. Together they stumbled over to the wizard who had rescued them. 

She was about Jorlan's height, and her hair was a white that reflected pale blue, cut in a bob around her head. Her skin was a light grey that was nearly lavender -- or maybe that was just the lighting, too. Unlike Vizeran, she did not wear the robes of a wizard, but practical leathers that looked more suited to a warrior. 

She addressed them in Undercommon, "I am Grinna Ousstyl, Master Vizeran's apprentice. He is expecting you; come, I'll show you the way in." She turned -- not towards the tower, but towards a narrow path through the rock.

Gaulir sheathed Dawnbringer, and his snout crinkled in a look of annoyance. He said something in Draconic, and Grinna whirled around, her expression bright. She added something in the guttural language, and Gaulir chuckled. Vaeros flapped his wings with delight.

"Perhaps we should stick to Common, for the sake of our paladin," Umbra said. "And for those of who don't speak Draconic."

Grinna glanced dubiously at Jorlan.

"I speak fair Common," he replied in the language in question. 

"Excellent. And, of course--" She made a series of hand gestures to Jorlan.

He ducked his head, looking sheepish, but replied with a few quick gestures of his own. "Lead on, sister," he added in Common.

Grinna stepped into the gap in the rock, the glowing of the fungi disappearing behind them. She brought to hand a floating globe of light. "For our surfacer guests," she said. 

Mavash stopped at the end of the line leading into the gap. "Sister?" she said, fixing on Jorlan. How many secrets could one elf hold? "I thought she--" 

Jorlan shook his head, made a cutting gesture in the air. "No, do not misunderstand. 'Brother' and 'sister'... it is a form of address." He looked back at Grinna with a forgiving smile. "At least with equals. Though that is rare, in Menzoberranzan."

Grinna spun, walking backward through the narrow space like some sort of Underdark tour guide. Realization dawned on her face, and she made a laugh like the tinkling of crystal. "Oh you thought-- ha! As if I were the daughter of the great Vizeran deVir!" She elbowed Jorlan as he tried to push past her. "One with deVir blood should be quite talented in the Art, no?"

Jorlan looked like he was holding his tongue. "I'm always a disappointment," he said stoically, and then added, " _Sister._ " He gave a defiant look back at Mavash, as if daring her to say something.

 _Fine, keep your secrets, Jorlan Duskryn_ Mavash said to him psychically, with a ripple of mirth. She still wasn't entirely sure she believed him; "sister" certainly seemed more intimate a term of address than she expected from the drow matriarchy. But it also seemed like Jorlan had some history with the female wizard, and perhaps that explained it.

 _You do make that difficult,_ he replied, and Mavash could feel laughter bubbling at the edges of his mind, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mavash is using ogham for divination, the "language of trees" of neo-pagan druidry. I drew the interpretation of the runes from John Michael Greer's _The Druidry Handbook_. Basically I was like, hmm, what would you draw if you wanted to get the message of "prepare Earthbind, dumbass."
> 
> The plant Mavash describes as a stand-in for heather is a little bit of both mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and sheep laurel (K. angustifolia). 
> 
> (Also I came up with the divination as a way to explain DM Nixon giving us a long rest before fighting the dracolich, and thus the opportunity to plan out our spells).
> 
> Also worth noting: in actual play, that fight with the dracolich suuuuuucked for Mavash. I spent most of the fight either a) positioning myself, b) being Frightened, or c) on the ground. I never did succeed at casting Earthbind; it's a STR check, and unsurprisingly dragons are STRONK. 
> 
> But that doesn't make for a very compelling story, does it? 
> 
> (Jorlan did totally show up to put a potion down Mavash's throat, though. I blame DM Nixon for the phrase "gentle fingers")
> 
> Pretty sure that in RAW there's not a dracolich and an illithilich waiting for you at the Tower of Araj. And Grinna is intended to be Grin, male apprentice to Vizeran.
> 
> ... man, have we really never seen Mavash cast spells before? Anyway, druids being druids, I imagine the verbal and somatic components of their spells are all very individual; there's no "magic word" that Mavash has to say to cast them, but she does have to say something personally meaningful.
> 
> (Also I totally imagine "words against fear" being the Bene Gesserit "fear is the mind killer" thing).
> 
> "Dalninil," from the fan dictionary, means "sister."


	10. Siltrin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"You are touch-starved, I think," she concluded, tapping her lips._
> 
> _He didn't know what that meant, but it felt like a rope thrown down to a prisoner in an oubliette. He grabbed onto it more eagerly than he cared admit._
> 
> In the aftermath of a fight with a fomorian and some purple worms, Mavash seeks to ease some of Jorlan's physical pain. But his wounds are more than surface deep, and Jorlan finds the cure is worse than the sickness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the obligatory bathhouse chapter of any fic.
> 
> I'm skipping ahead significantly in the timeline here. I'm working on the chapter at the Tower of Araj, but this one -- which I spun out of "Khaless" -- wanted to escape first. It is set at the end of the RAW chapter called "The Wormwrithings," after the heroes have gathered the purple worm egg needed for Vizeran's ritual.
> 
> I'll probably come back eventually and fill in the intervening stuff, but hey, if I can't write what's fun, what's the point in fanfic, right?
> 
> Content warning: implied/referenced sexual assault.
> 
> Incidentally, this chapter is a bit spicier than the others, but this is as spicy as it gets. I am admitting my characters want to bang, but there are never gonna be details. I like the sexual tension more than the physics ;)
> 
> (I dunno, maybe it sucks, HOW DO I ALLO?)

Jorlan was in the baths of the Tower of Araj. He had washed the fomorian blood and the purple worm ichor from his skin, but still the mental grime of the day lingered.

The bathing facilities were sparse, by drow standards, but still far better than he'd sampled since he'd started his chase of the heroes of Velkynvelve. This large pool was fed by a hot spring, which -- along with some assistance from Vizeran's spells -- kept the water blood-warm. In addition to the central soaking pool, the corners of the room held smaller pools for cleaning, fragrant with the smell of soap. There was even a small room with heated, reclining beds for lounging or massage. 

(Not for the first time, Jorlan wondered at Vizeran's motives for keeping a place like this. He was too busy to make much use of it, aside from basic hygiene. But perhaps he was also too drow to entirely leave these luxuries behind).

Jorlan sunk under the water, opening his eyes to take in the sight. The pool was lit by glowing algae that thrived in the vents of the hot spring. It was the only light in the room, by his choice. His head ached from too long spent in the bright light his companions favored, and he cherished the opportunity to rest in a place that didn't hurt.

Well, mostly. The hot water was doing its best for the muscles in his shoulders, but at this point the knots in his back had their own knots. He'd spent the last few days swinging around a blade that was entirely new to him, and marginally heavier than his shortsword. And he'd replaced his offhand dagger with the shortsword itself, effectively doubling the effort of each of his attacks. But he wasn't going to admit to his companions how much it was bothering him, lest they regret giving him the blade.

 _Oloth tlu malla,_ the sword was called. _Darkness be praised._ He'd recognized it as soon as he saw it -- a drow assassin's weapon, found in the hands of a troglodyte chieftain. When they'd put it in his hands, he'd raised an eyebrow and said. _You're giving me a head-chopping sword?_

 _But you're doing such a good job of chopping off heads already, Jorlan,_ Mavash had added, her eyes twinkling with humor. 

_And statistically speaking,_ Umbra had added, _it's only moderately more likely to chop off a head than a regular sword._

 _You are all disgustingly trusting,_ he'd replied, a mix of awe and disdain and... pride? He wasn't sure. This hadn't even occasioned a debate, unlike the poisons. Of course he would get the sword, they seemed to be thinking. Who else was going to use it? 

And then, on its very first outing, Jorlan had used it to deadly effect.

* * *

That whole fight was... hard. Physically exhausting, yes, but that wasn't the half of it. He'd spent enough time fighting beside his companions that they trusted him -- and he trusted himself -- not to bolt. And certainly they'd been in dire peril before. 

Even Mavash, who -- 

he could now admit, at least in the privacy of his own head 

\-- he was quite enamored with.

It was an odd feeling -- like the drunken elation he'd felt in the Gravenhollow had just never gone away. Perhaps the most surprising aspect was how... protective it made him. While there'd been people he'd fancied before, most of them were fleeting whims. There was no one he worried about going into danger.

(No one still living, at least).

But when Mavash suggested turning into a giant spider and leading the fomorian on a merry chase across the purple worm's webbing, his first reaction was a _no_ that he couldn't suppress. "Absolutely not." He regretted the words as soon as they were out -- as if he had any right to tell her what to do. 

And yet Mavash turned to him with curiosity and surprise, instead of the anger he deserved. "Do you have a better plan?"

He didn't. It was a good plan. As a captain, it was one he would have approved. Her giant spider form was one of her weaker ones, but she only needed to run away, and there seemed little risk that the lumbering fomorian could outpace her. And from a mercenary point of view, better she be in danger than Hanne, the teenaged drow girl who was busy prying out an egg from one of the highest egg sacs. 

Who, in fact, Mavash was trying to distract the giant from. 

Still, when Umbra's spell of invisibility settled over him, he followed Mavash-spider across the purple worms' webbing. He couldn't climb as a spider did, but he'd had enough experience walking on the spidersilk bridges that connected the stalactites of Velkynvelve, and was dextrous enough to catch himself if he started to fall. 

He thought Mavash noticed him once, crouched on the egg sac beside her. He feared she'd order him back, but realized in the next moment that she would never _order_ him to do anything. Nonetheless, he held his breath, still and cautious.

 _What do you even intend to do, Jorlan?_ his mind had mocked him. _You can't defend her better than she can defend herself._ It was a stupid, idiot urge, and he half feared he was growing possessively sentimental -- a feeling he'd had turned towards him before, and been discomfited by. A matron who wanted to keep you safe was almost more dangerous than one that wanted to shove you between her and peril. 

They were both surprised how fast the fomorian moved. Within moments, it turned that terrible, cursing eye upon Mavash. Jorlan watched with horror as the legs of the giant spider curled and shriveled beneath it, effectively immobilizing it. The fomorian's club had come down in a terrible one-two smash, splattering spider guts across the webbing, and returning Mavash to her slight kalashtar form. 

Jorlan was already in motion, having readied himself for precisely this. He dropped onto the shoulders of the giant, taking his first swing with the vorpal scimitar. 

The giant's head toppled off, as easily as a cutting the cap off a mushroom. Jorlan didn't even needed to sink his second blade into the creature. He leaped back into the webbing before he could fall with it. The creature's burning blood spattered his back, sliding down his neck.

Mavash was already back in wildshape -- an owlbear -- by the time he returned. And just in time, too. The shaking of the walls presaged the arrival of the purple worms, sensing their eggs were in danger.

After that... it was a blur. One purple worm after another came through the walls, each one arriving just as they thought they were done. In the final count, they killed six before Hanne pried the egg free. 

He remembered, though, the one that swallowed Mavash. He remembered the horror of watching the beast engulf her owlbear form, as if the hulking bird-creature was nothing more than a morsel to it. The utterly helpless feeling that came over him, like he was unmoored and falling slowly to his death. 

He turned away from the worm he'd been fighting -- leaving Lux and Umbra by themselves -- and ran towards the other one, chiding himself the whole way. 

(Why did he care? Why did he care so damn much?)

Taking his place beside Gaulir, the dragonborn gave him a knowing smirk. Jorlan guiltily recalled that he hadn't moved so expeditiously when Gaulir himself had been swallowed. 

He sunk his blades again and again into the thing. With Gaulir doing his part, and Mavash helping from inside the creature's gullet, the worm finally gave a screech and went still. 

He was still cutting, stabbing, trying to get Mavash out of the terrible thing. Only when she emerged -- the owlbear's white feathers blackened with stinking ichor -- did he relent. 

Stepping back, he realized his hands ached from clutching the blade too tightly. He wanted to run towards her, embrace her, and yet every every survival instinct screamed at him to turn around, to face the rumbling at his back. 

She butted her feathered head against his side and gave a psychic _Thank you_ before sprinting off, towards the worm Lux and Umbra were still fighting. It gave him a brief luff of something like... hope? But that was quickly tamped down by the realization that she had caught a whiff of the fear and calculation going through his mind.

And finally there was the stupid book. Why had he taken the dumb thing? (Why did a fomorian even have it?) What did he think drow poetry had to teach him? What sort of sentimental idiot was he becoming? He'd flipped through it in the privacy of his own room -- no one else had seen him take it -- and found it sickened him. It was all lust and no depth of emotion. 

It was as mercenary as coin, and he saw through the empty verses.

* * *

He sighed out a breath as he surfaced from the water. Had he really expected to find words for his wordless emotions in a language that didn't even have a word for--

The creak of a door, and the sound of bare feet. The red driftglobes of the bath turned on -- not painful to his eyes, but an adjustment from the relative darkness. He squinted and looked over his shoulder at the interloper.

It was Mavash. She wore a robe of unbleached fabric, loose enough to slip off one shoulder. She was still covered in dirt and grime and ichor; she hadn't had the chance to bathe yet. 

And here he was, inconsiderately making it impossible for her to do so. 

"I'm sorry," he murmured, and turned to face the wall of the pool, setting his arms on the edge. It was the least revealing position he could manage, given that he was, of course, naked. While he wasn't particularly troubled by his own nakedness in general, he'd found that other races had some prudish notions about bodies.

At the same time, Mavash said, "Oh, goodness, don't let me intrude."

They both gave a nervous laugh, followed by an uncomfortable silence.

It was then he remembered that appearing naked around someone you fancied was quite another matter entirely. 

Eventually, Jorlan continued, "I'm done in here, anyway. It's no bother. I just need a towel and a moment's privacy." 

Mavash gave an odd little half smile, and gestured permissively at the water. "You look comfortable. I won't bother you. I need to wash this mess off first, anyway." She indicated her own body, and then walked towards one of the cleansing pools, which was set up with a privacy screen.

He heard the sounds of running water, and splashing, and he relaxed back into the water. His heart was beating too fast. It must be from the heat.

The rushing of water had quieted, replaced with soft splashing noises, and a pleased groan. "Oh, how I wish we'd had these in Gracklstugh," Mavash said. "I remember limping into that city, covered in grime, wearing nothing but prison rags, and being told, 'oh, we don't do full immersion baths here; the water from the Darklake isn't safe for bathing.'"

"That explains why the deep dwarves smell so bad," Jorlan said, without rancor. Like most of his old beliefs, this stereotype was a tattered but familiar rag he hadn't bothered to throw away yet.

"Well," Mavash said, "I'm surprised but delighted. I didn't expect an exiled wizard to have a spa in his basement."

"Spa?" He raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar word. It must be Common.

He could imagine her furrowing her brow, trying to find the translation. "Perhaps in Undercommon you would say 'bathhouse?' Like... a place for luxury baths, basically. And other stuff, too, like massages and steam rooms and whatnot. They're usually built around a hot spring. I went to one in Neverwinter once." She chuckled. "It felt exquisite after a long time in the woods. But it wasn't something I wanted to get too used to."

He imagined her smile, and found himself smiling along with her. "Ah. We have such places in Menzoberranzan, too. We call them _el'laren d'ssinssrigg_ , houses of pleasure."

She laughed at that, and it echoed off the tiles of the room, breaking into tinier laughs that surrounded him. "That makes it sound like it's a brothel."

He shrugged, his aching shoulder making an echoing splash. "That is one of the services they provide, along with the ones you mentioned. _Ssinssrigg_ has many meanings"-- _none of them the right one right now_ \--"but it encompasses sexual desire, as well." He tried not to think too hard about the slaves working there -- attractive specimens of other races, the only ones who would lower themselves to dally with the likes of _him_ for mere coin, noble though he was. Not that they really had much choice in it. 

"I see," Mavash said, after a lengthy pause. She hadn't reached out to him with telepathy, but still she seemed to understand all the implications, what was left unsaid.

He sunk back under the water's surface, hiding. He was never sure how frank to be with her about sex. She had a bawdy sense of humor, but perhaps this was a bridge too far. Had he offended her with his talk?

But she was ready with another question when he broke the surface. "Are these mixed gender, these... houses?"

He brushed wet hair back from his face. "No. Not usually. Though I suspect not for the reason you think." When she did not immediately reply, he added, "The matrons and mistresses wouldn't want their bathwater sullied by the likes of _males_ , of course."

A tired sigh echoed behind the screen. "Of course."

"Though, in the privacy of a noble house's baths, it's not unusual for a matron to share a bath with her consort, or to exchange massages." Not, of course, entirely without ulterior motives.

A thoughtful pause, more splashing. "Do you not get tired of this?"

"Of baths?"

"Of being looked down upon."

"Mmm." That was a more difficult question. His initial response was _Of course_. Looking back on his life from this perspective, he was infuriated by all the things that were denied him because of his gender. But at the time? "If it's all you've ever known, it's very hard to imagine that things can be any other way. Would you miss sight if you were born blind?"

"I suppose not." 

"It wasn't until I was stationed in drow-occupied Blingdenstone that I started to understand that other races didn't live like that." His mouth twisted into a sour expression. "My matron mother would say that was when I grew... headstrong."

A musical laugh floated out from behind the screen. "I do _so_ enjoy it when you're headstrong, though." 

Her voice, breathy and cherishing, plucked at some resonant frequency in him. He sunk beneath the water again, and put his nervous energy into propelling himself to the opposite side of the pool and back.

When he broke the surface again, he said, "But to answer your original question, why Vizeran has these baths. I suppose you might say we are a people who value... sensual pleasures? Massages with scented oils, silken clothing, jhinrae, and perfumes. Beautiful things of taste and smell and touch. And with that goes--" He made a gesture encompassing the space, though it didn't read through the screen. "I'd be surprised if my father had turned his back on all that. There's little enough else to miss out of Menzoberranzan."

Another long silence -- long enough for Jorlan's worries to start up again. But eventually Mavash made a splashing noise and said, "You miss those things, too."

The wistful way his stomach turned at those words surprised him. It was a pang of nostalgia and homesickness that he hadn't expected -- even greater than when he considered never seeing the inside of House Duskryn again. 

There wasn't much worth missing from the City of Spiders -- except when there was. 

"I... suppose I do," he murmured, gazing into the water. "Even as an unwanted son of an unwanted house, they were things I was allowed..."

He heard the slap of her feet on the tile again, and her shadow melded with his own in the water. He did not turn -- whether to preserve her modesty or ignoring his own, he didn't know. Anyway, the scars at his collar felt like the greater immodesty, right now.

He felt her crouch down on the ledge behind him, and a finger slid over one of his scars. His muscles bunched involuntarily under the light touch, sensitized by the exertion of the past few days. 

She always knew where he hurt, didn't she? And she would always prod it with her finger before she learned better.

He ground his teeth, feeling heat rise to the tips of his ears -- but too mortified to move.

"Your concerns are touching, but you'll find I have very little modesty," she murmured, intuiting his thoughts. "I do go about naked half the time, remember."

Her animal forms, of course. He smiled, forcing his tone to be light. "I suppose once you've seen one pair of mammaries you've seen them all, eh?"

"More than. You've seen my moorbounder; _she_ has eight. I feel a little inadequate beside her."

"But maybe I'm the modest one." He looked over his shoulder with a smile of perfect innocence, and saw a curving expanse of milky skin--

He snapped his eyes back to the water. No, this would end nowhere good.

 _Or somewhere very good indeed,_ his mind unhelpfully supplied. 

"So it would seem," she replied, with a gentle chuckle. She rose, her shadow spreading out over the pool again, and fetched him a towel, passing it over his shoulder. He jumped when her hand squeezed his shoulder. "Peace."

She knew where to prod, but darkness bless her, she also knew when to step away.

She padded away on bare feet, and he soon heard the rustling of cloth as she donned her robe again. He made his own awkward dance exiting the pool and wrapping himself in a towel. 

Soon the barrier of clothing -- generously speaking -- was between them again. But it did not put him at ease, as he had expected. He'd half wished she'd joined him in the pool. Wished someone would pummel these _ssussun_ knots out of his shoulders. 

Wished he could feel her body's weight--

Finger to her lips, she studied him. Backlit by the lamps, he noticed her hair most of all -- she had too much of it, tangled in messy braids. And yet here it made a corona that reminded him of the setting sun of her surface world. If he were an artist, he would paint it.

"You are touch-starved, I think," she concluded, tapping her lips. 

He didn't know what that meant, but it felt like a rope thrown down to a prisoner in an oubliette. He grabbed onto it more eagerly than he cared admit. "I... am what?"

She shook her head, as if dissatisfied with how she had started. "These things you miss. Sensual pleasures, yes, but many of them touch-based." As if in illustration, she reached to interlace her fingers with his. "You said it yourself, in Gravenhollow. When you spoke of the love games you played. All that charm, all that flirtation -- sometimes it was just to feel another body against your own, you said. And now... you have so little." Her eyes were sad, asking a question that neither quite knew the answer to.

But she was right. The comfort he had felt that night in Gravenhollow, settling into trance with her body cradling his -- this had been so rare, but it was sometimes all he had wanted. It was easy to pretend it was all about _ssinssrigg_ , the flush of desire, the press of flesh. But he'd been looking for something simpler, too -- at once more primal and more wholesome. Something about escaping the prison of one's own mind, if only for a moment.

A harder prison door to open than any other, that.

"I can try to help. But in this form, I'm not very strong."

Jorlan had one moment of soaring fear and hope at those words. Could she mean-- did she know his thoughts--?

But it passed as soon as she added, "Your back, I mean." She looked down at the tile floor, tracing the grout with her toe. "I'm not an anatomist, but I don't think muscles are supposed to feel like metal snakes wrestling under your skin."

He burst out laughing. "That bad?" He rolled his head to the side, trying to stretch out the ache. "And what wildshape form is best for giving a massage?"

Her eyes crinkled in a grin. "Maybe I could walk across your back as a large housecat. If I could keep my claws sheathed."

"I scarcely believe you're capable of that."

"Mm. You're probably right." She closed the final distance between them, nosing at his wet hair. She smelled of soap and clean linen -- a smell both utterly alien on her skin, and yet supremely comforting. "Would you let me try? No claws; just hands. I promise."

 _I would let you try just about anything,_ he wanted to say. Instead he just nodded. "This room," he said, pointing to the lounging room to the right, "should have everything you need."

They stepped into the room, and the amber lights flickered on as they entered. The room held four lounging chairs, made of zurkhwood but draped heavily in cushions and soft furs. 

The nearest wall held a shelf full of sundry jars and bottles. Perusing it, Jorlan found various salves for sore muscles, decoctions that claimed to cure any manner of illnesses, and even some hair tonic. 

"Oh! This will make this much easier." Mavash said brightly. Her fingers fell on one of the small bottles of massage oil; she opened it to smell it. "It smells of surface plants. Jasmine, I think. Must be very rare in the Underdark." She handed it to Jorlan.

A wave of revulsion overtook him at the smell -- the sort of dread he felt before a blow landed. It took him a moment to realize why: it was a smell he associated with Ilvara's perfume. He hadn't known it was from a surface plant, but leave it to her to demand the rarest of perfumes. 

"I don't care for it." He set it back on the shelf, keeping his face carefully neutral.

Mavash shrugged. "Fair enough. Some people think it jasmine smells like cat pee, anyway." She sniffed at another bottle, wrinkling her brow in concentration. "This one smells... spicy? But not in any way that's familiar to me."

He smelled it, nodding. "I'm not sure what the Undercommon translation would be. Maybe... 'red dragon blood?' It's a mineral. No red dragons were harmed in the making of it, I promise," he said, glancing at her sidelong with an impish smile. "Anyway, it has a heating effect. It should be perfect."

Mavash plucked the bottle from his hand and gestured him to the nearest bed. 

"How do you want to do this?" he asked, and winced at the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

She raised her eyebrows suggestively. "Any way you like, of course."

He gave a chuckle he desperately hoped sounded casual, turning away to recline one of the loungers to lie flat. Well, if this was like the impersonal massages he could get from any random bathhouse in Menzoberranzan, then he should start face down. He settled himself, head on his arms, unsure what to expect.

Of course, those impersonal massage practitioners would only stand _beside_ the bed. Mavash being, well, Mavash, climbed astride his back.

An _oof_ of surprise escaped him. "I don't think these things were made to hold the weight of two people," he said. But that was nonsense. They were drow make; the artisans had to expect all sorts of hijinks to happen on any vaguely horizontal surface.

He thought that, and then tried to ignore that the center of her body's heat was now resting at the base of his spine. 

"Seems fairly sturdy to me," she said. Her hands hovered above his shoulders, surprisingly warm. "Should I... avoid your scars? I know they can be nervy and itchy."

The words, her hesitation, eased some of his own. _She will not hurt you,_ he tried to counsel himself. His mind believed it, but still his body was recalcitrant. "Please, go ahead. My shoulders need most of the work."

Nonetheless, Mavash started with his lower back, pressing her thumbs into the muscles that supported his spine. The pressure was less than he would have liked, but the oil worked some of the magic. The scent of it, warmed by her hands, soon filled the room, the miasma soothingly reminiscent of home.

Wherever that was.

"What did you _do_ to your back?" she grumbled, and he felt her bringing all her weight to bear on the heel of her palm. It still made little impact. 

"Just a small price I pay for constant vigilance," he quipped. "Just wait until you get to my neck."

"From all the time you spend looking over your shoulder, of course."

"Of course." He winced as her fingers pressed into a sensitive spot. "Not there. Please."

"Oh, sorry." She dropped her hands. "I'm not very good at this, am I?"

"No, please. Go on. Just... avoid that spot on each side above the kidneys. It's sensitive on most people."

"Oh, so you're an expert at giving these, too," she joked, but her hands returned to his back. "I wasn't aware I was being judged by a professional." 

He leaned into her touch, surprised to discover he'd missed it -- even if she was still too delicate. But her words brought back a vision of the person he used to play at being, which was less comfortable. Something he'd normally never share, but here he was, at her mercy, and if he was going to tell anyone--

"I had to be," he said, with a shuddering breath. "It is... a part of courtship, I suppose you'd call it?" He smiled ruefully. "A drow woman likes to test the skill of her lover's hands before she puts them to more intimate uses."

Her hands skated over his mid-back, pushing at the spot that always pained him, where one of his ribs attached to his spine. He gave a pleasurable sigh -- she was getting the knack for it now, and he could feel the knot release as her thumb pressed into him. 

"And if one didn't pass?" she asked.

"Depends on their mood and their motives, doesn't it?" he answered, with a morbid nostalgia. "Let us say, massage was something I learned to excel at, lest I find out."

"Perhaps you should be the one doing this, then." A long silence followed, as Mavash made long, smooth strokes over his back. They did very little for his muscles, but they left sparks in their wake. "And what if," she continued, with an odd detachment in her voice, "you did not fancy this woman?"

He made a snort of laughter. "I didn't fancy most of them. But they were useful, and I became very good at choosing my targets. I wasn't going to endanger myself if I didn't have anything to gain from it. Unwanted consorts have a habit of turning up dead in Menzoberranzan."

He felt her fists clench against the small of his back. "But it must happen frequently that one approaches you, but you are uninterested. Because it's too dangerous, or she has nothing you want, or she just doesn't suit your tastes." A thoughtful pause. "Always she? I am assuming an awful lot about you, aren't I?"

"You assume correctly, though." Honestly, it would have been so much easier if he had fancied other men. There was an entire demimonde that catered to that in Menzoberranzan, and for the most part it was beneath the notice of the priestesses. Of course, that would not have been nearly so profitable. "I don't know about _frequently_ \-- you flatter me, I think. But it does happen." Honestly he had felt that way about Ilvara at first -- her family too powerful, too little to gain. But after turning down the post offered him with the re-created House Do'Urden, getting away from Menzoberranzan with a priestess who wanted to bed him had looked a lot more appealing.

"And?" Mavash insisted. "What would you do?"

He made a grim smile into his arms. "I would try very hard to stay out of her way."

"Stay out of her way? Does that actually work?"

He made a non-committal gesture. "These interests are often... fleeting, so if you can stay away long enough, it will usually pass."

"Usually?" She sounded incredulous, her tone shrill, and her hands stilled on his back. 

She also sounded angry, and that worried him. He had said the wrong thing, hadn't he? He wasn't sure what, exactly. But blessedly, he could ask. "What's wrong?"

"I just-- you have no choice in the matter? These women can... prey upon you, and no one does anything to stop it? All you can do is try to escape her notice? What if that doesn't work? Do you just let them... have their way with you?" 

He propped himself on one arm and looked over his shoulder at her. Her cheeks were red, and she had balled her fists. In her slight humanoid form, it made her look rather like a petulant child. 

He understand then that she wasn't angry _at_ him. She was angry _for_ him.

Charming, really, but deeply embarrassing, because she would like his answer even less. He made himself meet her eye, and said, softly, "I'm still alive, aren't I?"

Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, J-" she began.

"Don't say it," he growled. "Don't fucking say my name." Her pity would kill him, cut by cut. 

She looked taken aback by his swear, as if she'd never heard the word in Undercommon before. "I just... hope you understand that that's coercion, not consent."

"I'm not a fool," he snarled. "But who's going to stop them?" He was growing angry now, and strangely defensive of his birthplace. "It's like that for women in some places in the surface world, though, isn't it? Maybe not in your beloved Neverwinter Wood, but there are places where they warn our jabresses before sending them to raid." Or they sent people like him -- expendable extra sons.

Mavash met his volley without bitterness. "Of course. Parts of Sossal were like that, too." Her own eyes went distant, and it was a long time before she continued, "It's not right wherever it happens, though." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "This isn't helping your back."

He noticed that he was gripping the wood of the lounger with alarming force. He forced himself to ease his grip. "No," he said flatly, and laid back down. "Anyway. Please... don't upset yourself on my account. I assure you, it was never so unpleasant that... my body could not derive some pleasure from it." He buried his face in his arms, ashamed of the words. 

Her hand tightened again on his shoulder. "That is _also_ not consent."

"You make it sound so simple," he murmured, "as if I didn't have any part to play. As if I just lay there like a doll and let things happen to me. What is the saying in Common? 'A dance requires a partner?' You seem determined to think me an innocent victim." There was too much blood on his hands for that.

"Nothing you did would have made you deserving of the treatment they showed you." Her fists were fairly pounding on his back now, which, honestly, was exactly what he needed.

"It wasn't that bad," he murmured. "Perhaps I'm making it sound too dramatic, or too frequent." He gave a deep sigh. "For the most part I was... invisible. Beneath notice. Nothing I did or said mattered. I could valiantly save one matron's life, or let her die, and the same thing would happen -- same yoke, different mistress. I might as well not have lived."

"That's bad enough," she replied, at a whisper. He could feel the tremor in her hands, and the muscles in his back twitched irritably in response.

He gave a sigh of tremendous forbearance. "You surfacers like to tell all kinds of stories of the extravagant evil of the drow. I've read them, you know. Demonic orgies and elaborate torture and selling off woe-betided underage sons to rapacious matrons. None of that happens." That was ... not entirely true, though it was certainly less common than the titillating stories liked to paint. "On a day-to-day basis, it was just... normal. You get used to not being seen. You can get used to anything, I suppose." He broke off, realizing he had been rambling, and no one wanted to hear his thoughts. 

The dripping of water marked a long silence.

"What did you want?" Mavash said. "When you were in the midst of all that, what did you hope for?"

"Mmm." He had to think about that. It had been hard to see very far ahead in those days. "Perhaps to become weapons master or patron to a middle-rank house -- nothing close to the scheming of the Council. Somewhere I could be comfortable and yet distant from Lolth's chaotic orbit." He chuckled. "Definitely not what my family would have hoped for." The pressure to take the Velkynvelve post had come from both his mother Inshalee and Matron Mother Prae'anelle. They'd hoped he would use the opportunity to become close to Ilvara, who might one day become matron of House Mizzrym. 

"Patron?" Mavash said, at the out-of-context word.

" _Ilharn_ , in Drow," he muttered. "The consort of the matron mother of a house. The highest position most males can aspire to -- short of becoming a master of Sorcere. And possibly the most dangerous, too. There's always someone younger and more captivating, isn't there?" His fingers dug into the wood again, thinking, despite himself, of Shoor. He couldn't bear the man animosity any more -- he was dead, after all, and Jorlan was not -- but it reminded him of the things he had done for that secondhand taste of power. 

Who he might have become, if he hadn't been blinded by these heedless do-gooders in the Upperdark. 

The thing was, that power was sweet and addictive. He nearly thought he _had_ fallen in love with Ilvara, before Shoor came along. The power it gave him in Velkynvelve, the respect of his family, the knowledge that for once in his life he was doing what was expected of him -- it was a pleasure easily mistaken for love. 

Especially in his native language.

"It is a poison," he sighed at last, an echo of that long-ago Gravenhollow conversation. "As you said. But they do everything they can to make you believe it's the sweetest wine." He'd said nothing of the indoctrination, the propaganda, either -- he'd gone through the most mind-numbing of it, in Melee-Magthere. "You come to believe that nothing the drow do is too egregious beside the evils of our enemies."

She laid a kiss between his shoulder blades, right on one of his scars. He expected her to say something cute and inane, but he was surprised when she growled, "I'm going to tear out the throats of the ones who hurt you. One day."

He laughed. "I think you already did that. Or, well, Umbra's shadow hound did, at any rate."

Her voice was stern and cold as she said, "I have the feeling Ilvara is only the most recent in a line of people who have hurt you."

He sighed into the pillow, tired of this conversation. "Again, you make me sound helpless."

"Of course not. A _helpless_ man wouldn't have cut the head off a fomorian in one chop. But you're just one man. You can't take on the whole matriarchy by yourself."

"And you can?"

"Well, at least there are six of us," she said, with a lopsided smile. Sobering, she added, "What we're doing here -- banishing the lords of the Abyss -- is no good if you have to go back to being someone's boytoy in Menzoberranzan after it's all over." 

He was more likely to become a drider than someone's lover, if he returned. But he had no heart to explain that to her. She would see no difference between the two fates.

She sighed, resting her palms against his shoulders, leaning heavily into him. The pressure was finally approaching something he might want; he felt adhered muscles slide apart infinitesimally under her weight. "I'm sorry. I'm not doing much to help here, am I?"

 _No_. But she was close and she was warm and her hips were canted into his; if she would just stop being mad at him, everything would be perfect--

 _I hope you know I'm not mad at you,_ she said, switching to telepathy. _Sorry. I was raising my voice. You know, you flinch when I do that. Or at least, these muscles do._ She pressed down on one of the muscles running underneath his scars. "Like you're about to be hit."

 _I am an open book to you, aren't I?_ he reflected bitterly. He'd spent a lifetime building up a shell as impenetrable as a hook horror's, only to discover that she had the tool to crack it.

"A book I'm still reading," Mavash said aloud, "I enjoy discovering new things about you every day."

"It's only a pity you came in at the final book in the series," he said.

She swatted playfully at his back. "Shut up. You have another, what, five hundred years to look forward to? I'll be bones tangled in the roots of a tree by then."

He was unprepared for the terrible sense of doom that gave him -- not unlike what he had felt, seeing her swallowed by the purple worm. He didn't want to do the terrible math, but his mind relentlessly pushed forward. She was twenty-five; that meant another fifty-five years if she was lucky. Twenty-five years if she was unlucky -- if she kept trusting every damn person with a sob story to tell.

In that many years he would still be considered a young adult.

 _I hear you calculating,_ she said in his mind. _But don't count me out yet. The greatest of druids age slowly. The archdruid of my grove is a human approaching his third century._

He still didn't like the math, and he ground his teeth around them. _This is why you shouldn't care for the short-lived races,_ he counseled himself. _They will be taken from you by an invincible foe: time._

She made a heavy sigh, then, and climbed off the bed. "I'm not sure I helped at all, but..." She smoothed a hand down his back, and he heard her feet patter against the tile to the lounger beside him. 

He turned over onto his back. "You did." Maybe she was right -- maybe he was touch-starved, because that attempt at a massage was more helpful than it had any right to be. "And I have some exercises I can do that will help." He pillowed his head on his arms, and admitted, with a sigh of defeat, "It's the sword, you see. It's heavier than my shortsword, and the shortsword is heavier than my daggers... anyway. It should resolve itself soon enough."

She gave a musical little laugh, gazing up at the ceiling. "That was something to behold -- you taking down that giant by yourself. You were incredible. I wanted to..." She coughed, and trailed off. "Do these lights turn off?"

"Mmm." Jorlan made a gesture in the air -- the tiny bit of magic he could manage, allowing the magics of the Tower to recognize him as a resident. The amber lights dimmed to nothing, and the ceiling lit up with thousand pinpricks of light. 

"Stars," she said, with awe. "I'm surprised. I wouldn't think Vizeran would care for such a thing."

Jorlan had to think about that. "My father isn't sentimental in the least, so I suspect Grinna is probably responsible for this choice. The moon and stars are a favorite emblem of the Eilistraeeans. They're famed for dancing naked under them as part of their rites."

He shifted his vision to the heat spectrum, wanting to see the fine movements of Mavash's face. _I want to play her at a game of sava_ , he thought; her expressions hid nothing. 

Currently, she looked surprised. "I didn't know Grinna followed Eilistraee. Although, I guess it makes sense. She welcomed Hanne and Zhora warmly enough."

"Her religious predilections are probably what drove her out of Menzoberranzan. Though I haven't spoken to her about it."

A companionable silence rested between them for several minutes. But it couldn't last.

After a moment, Mavash's hand reached out, seeking Jorlan's over the gap between the beds. He took her hand, feeling the oil slick against her palm, still tingling with heat. He turned her hand in his, running his thumb down the vein in her arm. Against his darkvision, it glowed bright and lively.

A smile, and a _hmph_ of laughter. "What do you see?"

He gave his own languid smile, continuing to trace the vein into her palm. "Your blood, branching into your hand like a vein of silver." 

"I'm amazed you can see that fine level of detail."

"Now you know why we have an entire language of hand signs." He pushed his thumb gently into the muscled edge of her palm, trying to ease the tension there. It was the least he owed her.

Mavash took a breath as if to speak, but it was several moments before she said, "Jorlan, there's something I need to be direct with you about. Instead of dancing around it in innuendos and generalities."

His hand stilled, feeling another pang of dread. Conversations that started this way never ended well.

"If..." she began, and then restarted. "Look. I know where we stand with each other. And hearing what you just told me about your past, well. Whatever you want -- what we might both want -- I will need you to be the one to approach. To put it into words. Real words, not thoughts." She turned on her side to face him, smiling a little sadly. "Because you won't always have the luxury of being with someone with telepathy. Because silence is also not consent."

He understood at once what she meant, and shame burned in his face; he released Mavash's hand as if burnt. Thank goodness she didn't have darkvision; she would have seen him light up like a carnival lantern. 

He understood: he was not pleasing to her. The choices he had made, the things he had done, were distasteful to her. She spoke so lovingly of his powers of survival, and yet still she judged him for it.

Or worse: He had a crack down the center of his heart, and she didn't want to handle him, lest he fall to pieces. 

And how did she know what he was after? Who said he had any interest in bedding her, anyway? With no curves to speak of and hands as rough a carpenter's? Not to mention she didn't even _own_ a hairbrush.

The telepathic link was still open, so he slammed closed the gates of his mind. "As you like it," he said, nonchalant, and gods damn it he was _not_ going to let anything tell on his feelings this time. Not to a surfacer who knew too much of him and understood none of it. Who couldn't even see his burning face in the dark. 

Nonetheless, she sat up, looking alarmed. "Jorlan," she began again, her voice a cherishing whisper. He thought it would tear a scream from his throat. "I'm not doing this to punish you, you know. I'm doing this precisely because I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to leave you with regrets if... I perish in this mission."

His voice thinned with pain, he said, "And otherwise I would have no regrets if you died?"

"Right now I'm not sure," she said. "You've become the mask again." She studied him for a time, and concluded, "I think you are so used to people telling you what to do that you're terrified of doing anything by your own initiative."

He made a noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob. "Initiative is a great way to be killed, where I come from." And a terrible way to die.

"I know. But you're not there any more. You never have to live there again." She leaned forward on the bed, trying to meet his eye. He denied her that, staring straight against the wall. "Listen. Remember how just the other day, you laughed at how afraid everyone was to say 'Lolth?' The safest place to say it -- here in the warded tower of _your own father_ , someone who has done everything he can to oppose her -- and everyone was dancing around the name. Everyone but you. Why was it so easy then to remember you're not in Menzoberranzan any more?"

He didn't have an answer for that. Perhaps it was easier to spit in the face of a demon-goddess who demanded your submission than to spit in the face of a friend. 

More than friend.

Lover. Would-be lover.

Whatever. 

One corner of Mavash's mouth quirked up in a smile. "Believe me when I say, if it were only up to me, I would..." And through the telepathic link, she transmitted a vision of primal passion that left him without breath.

Again he was very glad she could not see in the heat spectrum.

"But as you say... a dance requires a partner." She rose from the bed and bent down above him, laying a gentle kiss on his brow. "Whenever you're ready. Ask me to dance, Jorlan Duskryn."

As she left the room, he wanted to say something. Wanted to call her back. Wanted to beg her to touch him again, in the way that left no room for doubt as to how she felt about him, or he about her.

But the words stuck in his throat, and he knew himself a coward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- As written, _Oloth tlu malla_ is only a +2 longsword. Not actually a vorpal scimitar. Come on, Chris Perkins. You say right in the introduction to OotA there's a lot of Alice in Wonderland inspiration in this adventure, and you pass up the opportunity to put in a vorpal sword? 
> 
> I left out the part where Mavash tried to make Jorlan think it was an intelligent weapon by talking to him telepathically with a bad drow accent. 
> 
> \- Yes, an owlbear is a monstrosity, not a beast, and a druid shouldn't be able to turn into one. But listen, if WoW taught me anything, it's that druids and owlbears are inextricably linked. Also it's basically a CR3 cave bear, and DM Nixon suggested it.
> 
> \- the drow poetry book that the fomorian has is, strangely enough, part of the actual treasure in RAW. I have no idea what Jorlan intended with it. I suspect DM Nixon just had him take it to create interesting fanfic hooks. Operation: successful.
> 
> \- Oh yeah, and Grinna, who is briefly mentioned, is a gender-swapped version of Grin Ousstyl, Vizeran's apprentice in RAW. I don't think there's anything that _prevents_ drow women from being wizards, although I imagine it's frowned upon.
> 
> \- Jorlan's rant about "stories surfacers tell about the drow" is a modified version of my rant about the ridiculous, over-the-top evil of the drow matriarchy as seen in the books and in (a lot of) fanfic. So much of the drow matriarchy reads like some guy's BDSM fantasy or a "bitches be crazy" joke. That's one of the things that makes the drow so problematic; it turns female characters into caricatures without inner life other than I WILL BE TERRIBLE TO MEN AND PLEASE LOLTH. 
> 
> (That said, I mean... all of the things he mentions ARE things that happen in drow society that he's trying to gloss over. He graduated from Melee-Magthere; he should know from demonic orgies). 
> 
> \- I jokingly call this "the chapter where Jorlan learns that a boner is not consent." It's basically impossible for him to have been in a consensual relationship within the drow matriarchy, because of the lack of freedom to say "no." But of course he doesn't realize that. And since I have painted him as a survivor of sexual assault, I think that the ethical thing for Mavash to do (and she would do the ethical thing; she's chaotic good) would be to let any sexual aspect of their relationship develop entirely on his terms.
> 
> Which is also incredibly difficult for him, for much the reason Mavash named. And of course he's going to read it as a rejection of him at first, which leads to sadness. But I hope I ended it with a bit of hope for these two lovebirds.
> 
> \- The chapter title, "siltrin," means "flesh" in the fan dictionary. "Touch," alas, is not defined, or I would have used that as the chapter title.


	11. Araj

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vizeran has a plan for getting rid of the demon princes, and it's a bad one. How is he going to get our heedless do-gooding adventurers to buy into it?
> 
> Easy: he's going to make someone else explain it.
> 
> Or: in which Vizeran continues to be insufferable, Mavash gets angry, and Jorlan Explains It All (where "all" = drow politics)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately after "Dalninil" and before "Siltrin." I would add it into the correct position, but it turns out that if I do that, subscribers don't actually get sent to the correct chapter, and are very confused! So I'mma just leave this one as chapter 11 for now. 
> 
> (And if you missed "Dalninil" for this reason, hey, go check it out; it's chapter 9!)
> 
> If you still care about spoilers, this one is spoilery through "The Tower of Vengeance" in the RAW adventure.

Inside the Tower of Araj, pale violet light greeted them, illuminating the hollowed-out interior of the giant stalagmite. A staircase wound in a spiral up the walls, stopping at several landings along the way. 

The source of the violet light was an orb hovering at the center of the room. Grinna strode into the center of the orb, and gestured Mavash and her companions to join her. "Don't be alarmed," she said.

 _By what_? But as soon as Mavash stepped into the glow of the violet orb, her skin prickled with the sensation of magic.

Once everyone had gathered around Grinna, the apprentice said something that sounded like, _kulam_ , and the violet orb began to rise -- carrying Mavash and her companions as passengers.

Though Mavash had flown before in her animal forms, it was a different experience entirely to be levitated through the air out of her control. And yet the orb did not move quickly, and so she was able to observe the passing floors -- a kitchen and dining room, guest suites, and a laboratory of some sort. Most interesting was a large device, partially deconstructed on the floor of the lab, which appeared to be... well, the most accurate description would be "horseless carriage."

Jorlan made some hand gestures at Grinna. Then he added in Common, "Fortunate that Vizeran doesn't assume that anyone worth visiting him would be of noble blood."

Grinna laughed at that. "True!" Glancing over at the group, she added, "That may require more than translation for the surfacers."

But the apprentice's attention was diverted as the orb neared the vault of the ceiling. Grinna spoke the word _ikalik_ and the orb stopped; she immediately leaped out and headed for an arched doorway.

Jorlan waved his companions ahead as he made the explanation. "It's only nobles who innately have the power to levitate. There are a number of noble dwellings in Menzoberranzan without stairs, for that reason. I'm just surprised my father makes anything easier for anyone."

"You can levitate?" Mavash said, glancing behind her with a look of incredulity. "How have I never seen that? Or did you lose that when you..." _Defected._ She stopped the word just in time, though her hand gesture still told a story.

He made a lazy shrug. "It's not the fastest or most effective means of movement, unless I need to get somewhere I can't reach on foot. It has some uses in traversing the Underdark -- though luckily we've been avoided most of the worst terrain."

"I would have worried so much less for you when we faced the corespawn, if I knew that was the case," Mavash grumbled.

"I'm touched," he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He put a hand to the small of Mavash's back, encouraging her forward, through the archway. 

They found Vizeran in what Grinna called his "sanctum." It had the air of a study, or a library -- a room full of bookshelves of dark-stained zurkhwood, softened by comfortable couches and tattered tapestries on the walls. The lighting was provided by a series of small rods in sconces along the walls, glowing amber to half their height.

Vizeran, reclining on one of the couches with a book in his hand, did not stand to greet them. "Ah, your timing is excellent. I've just sent my servant for some libations. Please, sit." He set down his book and waved them to seats nearby.

Mavash took a seat gingerly in an armchair full of books, feeling one of the spines dig into her back. This "sanctum" did not seem the sort of place that was designed to have guests, and Vizeran was taking up the only clear space in the entire room. Jorlan, for his part, opted to lean against a wall at Mavash's back, his posture idle but alert. It seemed even in the house of his father he did not relax easily.

Within moments, a tray ghosted invisibly into the room, carrying a plate of dried mushrooms and small cups of what looked like jhinrae. Vizeran took a handful of the mushrooms and one of the cups, and settled back into the pillows propping him up. "Well, my friends. What did you learn in the Gravenhollow?" He spoke in Undercommon, but repeated himself in Common.

Gaulir inclined his head in silent thanks for the code-switch. "As we spoke of in the Archive of the Past. We learned that this Gromph Baenre you mentioned summoned Demogorgon into Menzoberranzan. By reports the demon prince was much weakened by the ordeal. Which," he reflected, "was, I suppose, to our benefit when we met him in Sloobludop."

Vizeran raised his bushy silver eyebrows. "Oh, so you had met the fiend before? Interesting. I had heard he'd caused trouble amongst the kuo-toa."

"He wiped out the entire city," Umbra added.

Vizeran made a lopsided smile. "Indeed? Impressive." He raised his cup in a salute. "Anything else?"

Between the group, they shared what they had learned. Vizeran listened attentively, hands steepled, eyes closed.

When they were done, Vizeran opened his eyes and said, "You did not mention the voice you heard." His eyes fixed on Lux. "Hunter of demons. You were the one who mentioned it. The laughter, when Demogorgon was summoned."

"Does that signify?" Lux asked.

"I believe you described it as feminine, no? Demogorgon isn't usually described in those terms. Though, of course, the demon princes may take any form they like."

The bowl of dried mushrooms passed to Mavash, and she sampled one; it had been dredged with a mixture of spices, rendering it pleasantly piquant. "I'm not sure what you're implying," Mavash said, taking a cup from the tray the unseen servant proferred. "Are you saying it was one of the other demon princes?"

Vizeran chuckled. "Not precisely." He shifted himself to a sitting position, looking up at Grinna. "Do you recall your lessons in the geography of the Abyss?"

Grinna looked surprised, like a student not expecting to be called on. "Uh... it's an outer plane on the Great Wheel, right? Bordered by Carceri and Pandemonium. Some say it has 666 layers; others say the number of layers is unknowable." She paused, finger tapping at her lip. "What am I missing?"

Vizeran made a scowling noise, clearly displeased. "Surely you recall what resides on the 66th level of the Abyss?"

Grinna clenched her fists, lowering her head. "The Demonweb Pits. The home of the Queen of Spiders."

Vizeran made a mocking clap. "Very good. I see your lessons haven't been completely in vain."

A long silence lay between them, with Grinna furrowing her brow in thought. Finally she said, "If you are suggesting what I think you are suggesting... what motive would the Dark Mother have?"

"Could someone please enlighten me on what in everloving fuck is going on here?" Lux said, reaching their breaking point. 

"My father is implying," Jorlan said, "that Lolth was somehow behind this all, and that it was her laughter you heard."

Vizeran and Grinna's heads swiveled towards Jorlan, staring him down.

He spread his hands wide. "What? Lolth. Lolth, Lolth, Lolth, _Lolth_. Why will no one say it?"

Vizeran made a half smile, showing a hint of white teeth. "Indeed. If we are not secure from her manipulations here, then there is nowhere secure. But," he said, "old habits die hard. And perhaps that superstition is understandable, when you have borne the consequences of that laughter." His eyes seemed to drill into Jorlan's, daring him to continue his defiance. 

Jorlan laughed, and Mavash thought she saw him roll his eyes. But this was not, apparently, a hill he cared to die on.

"However, Jorlan has the thrust of it," Vizeran continued. "I believe that Gromph's intentions were simply to summon _one_ of the abyssal lords. Even he would not be foolish enough to think he could control all of them. So we must believe the ritual slipped out of his control somehow. And given that laughter you described, it leads me to believe that that... error, was somehow orchestrated by Lolth." 

"Again, Master... why?" Grinna asked. "What does she have to gain by bringing the demon lords into the Underdark?"

Vizeran's features bunched up in a gesture of disdain. "Bah! Just because she has her own defensible keep in the Abyss does not mean she is not still at war with the demon princes. Does the Spider Queen strike you as the type to be content with the power she has?"

Grinna winced at that -- an unnamed pain that acknowledged the justice of the remark. 

"Perhaps," Mavash said, her thoughts running only a step ahead of her words, "she wished to evict the princes from the Abyss, so she might have the whole place to herself."

"Like young adults trying to kick their parents out of the house so they can have a party," Lux said.

"I assure you, there's no party of Lolth's I want to be invited to," Jorlan added. 

Mavash had to agree with that sentiment. 

"And where does the faerzress come into this?" Umbra asked, an echo of her question in the Gravenhollow. "Gromph was clearly channeling them somehow. Since then, they seem to almost be... corrupted, somehow. They have always impeded magic, to some degree or another, but... not like this."

"Yes," Vizeran said, drawing out the syllable. "The faerzress. It was what allowed Gromph to tear a hole big enough for a demon prince to step through. But since then it's become like a... current, I suppose you surfacers would say. A tide? Is that the word? It carries the madness of the fiends into this world from the Abyss. "

A chill ran through Mavash at his words. And yet, his logic was compelling; it explained many of the strange characters she'd met in her time in the Underdark. "We've seen the results of that first hand. The Deep King enthralled, the residents of Mantol-Derith fighting over a gem, a mad druid..." Mavash closed her eyes, thinking on one who could not be saved. As an aside to her companions, she said, "Perhaps we should inform the Emerald Enclave that their contact turned out to be a cannibal."

"I... think that's a conversation best had in person," Umbra said, her voice pitched low.

"So," Vizeran said, "that is the situation as I best understand it. Understandably, my exile makes it difficult to keep track of what that idiot Gromph is up to, but I fancy that I've done a rather good job of it." He sat a bit taller at those words.

A long, pregnant pause followed, while Vizeran eyed them expectantly.

Finally, Mavash spoke. "I suppose the obvious question is, is there any way to reverse what Gromph has done?"

"Hmph." Vizeran frowned. "Can you pour water back in a broken jug? Can you undo words spoken in pain? Can you put a stalk of zurkhwood back in the earth once it's been harvested?"

"Are these song lyrics?" Lux asked, through their teeth.

"Point taken," Mavash said, and felt blood rush to her cheeks, embarrassment at a question she knew now was absurd. 

A foot tapped at the back of her chair. She looked up, seeing Jorlan behind her. As she watched, he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, a finger brushing over his temple. An odd gesture... _oh._

 _Yes?_ she probed telepathically.

_You are completely without artifice of any sort, aren't you? Look back at Vizeran. He's watching you. He doesn't need to know we're having this conversation._

_I need to see you to make the mind link,_ she grumbled. But fair enough; once it had been made, she didn't need vision in order to maintain it.

 _Luckily he probably thinks you're besotted with me,_ Jorlan added.

Mavash forced her gaze back to Vizeran, who was again sporting that toothy half-smile. She raised the cup in her hand to her mouth, hiding her look of confusion in its shadow. The liquid within smelled of fortified wine and of surface spices.

 _Aren't I?_ she replied -- and wouldn't _that_ give Jorlan something to chew on. _What did you want?_

A flustered pause, and he replied, _To give you some advice. Vizeran lived some five hundred years under the matron mothers of Menzoberranzan, and that takes a toll on someone._ Another uncomfortable pause. _What I'm saying is, don't let him intimidate you. If you look down your nose at him, he'll remember his... place._ The last word-thought was seasoned with bitter irony. 

Mavash hadn't thought of that angle -- using her gender as a lever against recalcitrant drow males. (It might have helped with poor Sarith, for better or worse). But it went against her better nature, to use the cruel priestesses she'd known in Velkynvelve as an example.

 _You don't need to be cruel,_ Jorlan counseled, _you just need to act as if you have have no tolerance for his nonsense and that you are absolutely in control of the conversation._

All right, then. Mavash sat up straighter, and practiced a scowl of disapproval, looking down her nose at Vizeran. "Enough." She made a slashing gesture in the air. "Do you know a way to stop this demon incursion, or did you bring us here merely to impress us with your knowledge? My companions and I don't have time to waste playing out your grudge with Gromph Baenre."

Vizeran's eyebrows shot up. "Ah, of course." He set down his cup, hiding his own face while he composed his features.

 _Well done,_ Jorlan mindspoke, a purr of satisfaction in his word-thoughts.

Mavash sat back in her chair, forcing herself to look more at ease than she felt. She finally took a sip of the fortified wine, and found it an interesting blend of savory and spicy, clearly some type of jhinrae. If only she had time to indulge more...

Vizeran cleared his throat, and said, "To be frank, I know of no way to reverse the ritual Gromph has done. It may not even be possible. However..." He made a dramatic pause, as if begging the others to ask him to continue.

Mavash tipped her head in a look that said, _Are you really still grand-standing?_

 _Truly, you're a natural at this,_ Jorlan said in her mind. _I'd cower with you as my matron mother._

 _It's not something I wish to get too comfortable with,_ Mavash replied; it made her feel dirty. And yet, would they have gotten anything from this recalcitrant wizard otherwise?

Vizeran opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then started again with, "I believe you all know what happens if a demon is killed on the material plane, yes?"

Gaulir did, which obviated Mavash having to give Vizeran another capital-L look. "They are merely banished back to their home," the paladin said. "The Abyss, in this case."

"Indeed," said Vizeran. "In this world, they can't be created or destroyed; merely summoned and banished. Their return to the Abyss is exactly what the Demon Queen does not want, yes? Which means it is precisely what we seek."

"If you are suggesting we kill the eight demon princes to send them back to take their revenge on Lolth... well, that is a task I will gladly take up." Gaulir smiled, baring his dagger teeth.

Lux looked up, suddenly interested in the conversation again at the mention of killing demons. "Why don't we follow them, and destroy them in their homes, for good?"

"That would be your death," Vizeran said. "Which I'm told your type sometimes seeks, but I found it hard to believe until now." He tapped a finger to his lips, his smile canny. "What is that foolhardiness like? It must be intoxicating."

"Don't commit the rest of us to that course," Umbra murmured. 

Gaulir bowed his head. "Very well." 

Lux merely looked disappointed.

"Surely it must be one's death on this plane, too?" Mavash wondered aloud. "Even away from the Abyss, their powers are considerable." She looked back on the devastation Demogorgon had wrecked on Sloobludop, or that Zuggtmoy had wrought on the Neverlight Grove, and could not imagine how mortal power could oppose them. 

"For mighty adventurers such as yourself, who have already fought their way out of the Underdark once? Perhaps not as deadly as that." His fingers played over the lip of his cup, as he looked into the middle distance. "Or at least, I believe... defeating and banishing _one_ would be within your power. All eight? Perhaps not."

And there weren't only eight to contend with, were there? Still il-Lashtavar was on Mavash's tail -- the shadow with eyes that hungered for her soul. It might not be a lord of the Abyss, but it was danger enough on its own. It was the reason the goodly quori had left Dal Quor, had fled to the stars.

"If we only banish one, we gain little," Umbra pointed out. "The others will simply fill the void left by their absence. We've already banished Fraz-Urb'luu, and that had very little discernible effect."

"It made a great deal of difference to the citizens of Mantol-Derith," Ambergris pointed out, speaking for the first time. The dwarf had seated herself on a footstool, the only sitting surface short enough for her legs. 

"All right, fair enough," Umbra admitted. "But still. I'm curious how Vizeran thinks this will help."

"I think," Vizeran began, and then stopped. This time, Mavash allowed him his bit of showmanship. "I think that we are going to monopolize on the work Gromph Baenre has already done, _and_ the well-known enmity between the demon princes, to let them whittle down their own numbers."

 _When my father says 'we,' you should know that means, 'you',_ Jorlan told Mavash. 

_Of course. If he'd been able to do it himself, he would have already done so._

A mental chuckle. _And that doesn't trouble you. Of course not._

"Doesn't that require getting them in the same place?" Lux asked, looking up from what they had been doing -- apparently, splitting hairs along Azuredge's blade, in real or simulated boredom.

Vizeran pursed his lips in a thin smile. "Why, yes it does. I propose answering Gromph's summoning with a summoning of our own."

He looked excessively pleased with himself for a moment, and then everyone began speaking at once.

"You want to replicate--" Umbra began, and started over. "You want to summon them, like Gromph summoned them."

"Is the idea to pit them in gladiatorial combat?" Gaulir added. "And then we defeat whoever is left over?"

But Mavash, for her part, said, "How is this possibly a good idea? Forget defeating a single one; their very footsteps will destroy the ground around them."

"Which is why," Vizeran said, loud enough to be heard above the other voices, "I intend to summon them into the heart of Menzoberranzan."

Grinna's eyes went wide at that; either that had been news to her, or she had not expected Vizeran to reveal it. 

Vizeran rose from his couch, taking his book in hand and brushing crumbs from his robe. His eyes flicked towards the amber lights, and he said, "Now, if you will excuse me. I will leave the details of what is required for the summoning ritual to Grinna. It is well past time for me to take my Reverie."

He stopped on the threshold of the door, considering each of them in turn. If he were anyone else, Mavash would have judged he was about to make an apology for his inhospitable behavior. 

But his nostrils merely went wide for a moment, and he nodded at Jorlan before leaving the room.

* * *

As soon as Vizeran was gone, a murmur of conversation filled the room; plans and concerns and a touch of affront at Vizeran's outrageous plan.

But Mavash had her own concerns. Leaving the Gravenhollow, she had asked Jorlan, _Can we trust Vizeran?_

 _We can trust him to act according to his nature,_ he had said, which was no kind of answer.

Aloud, she said, "This is what I feared -- that Vizeran would use us as pawns to enact revenge. Not just on Gromph, but on all of drow society. Or at least all of Menzoberranzan." She shook her head with a vigorous motion, sending her braids flicking from side to side. "I won't be party to it. He will not make me a murderer of innocents."

"One would be hard pressed to find innocents in Menzoberranzan," Umbra said. 

Mavash swiveled her head towards the sorcerer, her eyes blazing with rage and with the radiance of her quori. "But not none," she hissed. She glanced significantly at Jorlan.

"I am no innocent," Jorlan said, under his breath.

"Mavash has a point," Gaulir said. "I won't participate in a slaughter. How many Jorlans are there in Menzoberranzan that can be redeemed?"

Jorlan made a thin smile. _Redeemed, eh?_ he said into Mavash's mind. 

_It isn't the word I would have chosen._ But she was in a rage, so she closed the mind link abruptly.

Grinna cleared her throat. "I believe if Master Vizeran were here, he would say..." She took a shuddering breath, readying herself for the words. "Menzoberranzan is sick, diseased. It is rotten down to its foundations. It can't be healed; it can only be destroyed and rebuilt."

"Is that what you think? Or what Vizeran thinks?" Mavash asked, her tone steely.

Grinna pinched the bridge of her nose. "I... see the justice of his point, but unlike him, I still have family there. People I care about." She laughed. "My failing as a drow, I suppose." She rubbed her thumb along the spines of books, looking thoughtful. "Know that this isn't something I go into idly, though. I've had plenty of time to think about Vizeran's plan. If I told you there was a way to reduce collateral damage -- to save as many innocents as possible -- would you consider his plan?"

Now, that was a more difficult question. Mavash cursed the fact that, in all her time as an adventurer, she still had never learned to make those kinds of judgments; to figure out what amount of death balanced out what amount of life.

And so she looked to Jorlan. "It's your home. Or at least, your birthplace. What do you say?"

He gave a shrug, so casual they might have been talking about getting rid of an old shoe. "Aside from a few noodle shops, I have no fond memories of Menzoberranzan. Light it up."

Mavash was sure there was more to it than that, but without the telepathic link, she couldn't tell much more. "I suppose we have to at least consider it," she admitted, making a permissive gesture.

"You need make no decision now," Grinna said. "As Vizeran alluded to, there are many components he requires for the summoning ritual. That should give you plenty of time to think on the cost and the benefit of the ritual. And, in the meantime, my contacts in Menzoberranzan will have time to make preparations."

"What a fine introduction that is," said a musical voice from the direction of the door.

Standing in the doorway was a small drow woman, about Umbra's height. She had some of the longest ears Mavash had ever seen on an elf, and her white hair was tied back behind them in a queue. Her skin was a rosy-grey color, giving her the impression of being flushed with embarrassment.

Grinna's expression brightened to see her. "Thank goodness you're here," she said, around a sigh of relief. "I thought Vizeran might have frightened you off."

"He can't get rid of me that easily." The newcomer crossed to Grinna and took her head in her hands, kissing her on the forehead. "I will have to leave for Menzoberranzan soon enough, though," she murmured, resting her forehead against Grinna's.

Grinna made a sad nod and stepped away reluctantly. Turning her attention back to Mavash and company, she said, "Ah, friends, this is my companion, ah... Szinoj Do'Urden. Or--" She looked uncertainly at Szinoj. 

"Ah, yes." There was a twinkle of mischief in Szinoj's eye. "I believe you were told to find me." She made a grasping gesture in air, and her drow features melted away, leaving the face of a high elf woman with braided red hair. "I'm Rystia Zav. And I can't imagine there are many like you walking around the Underdark, so you must be the heroes of Velkynvelve." She gave a little nod to Jorlan. "And you must be Jorlan Duskryn -- the 'traitor' House Mizzrym has been screaming about."

"My reputation, as always, proceeds me," Jorlan muttered.

"You're our contact with the Harpers," Mavash said, just as she realized it. "We were told you were infiltrating Menzoberranzan?"

Rystia gestured down at her body. "Hence the disguise." She looked over at Grinna, touching her hand to the other woman's elbow. "I had some help."

"Szinoj Do'Urden," Jorlan said slowly, as if tasting the name. "So that's how you think you can reduce the collateral damage from Vizeran's plan -- from inside Baenre's puppet house." He had a satisfied look on his face, as if he had finally pieced it all together -- and how uncannily he looked like his father when he did that, with a hint of tooth behind his smile. "From your dress, I have to assume you're a warrior. Is this something your captain dreamed up?"

That seemed to surprise Rystia -- maybe the truest sign that she wasn't actually a drow. "You mean, ah, our mutual friend?"

Jorlan made an exasperated gesture. Mavash didn't understand a word of their sign language, but even she knew that meant, _Who else could I possibly mean?_

"Well, yes, he and the Matron Mother. She has generously offered--"

"Stop," Jorlan said, holding up a hand. "She doesn't do _anything_ generously." He added, lowly, "For that matter, neither does the new captain."

If nothing else, Mavash's rage had been replaced with confusion -- at the words, and at the furious conversation with hand signs that was still going on. She sighed and said, "Could one of you please explain for us ignorant surfacers what these drow politics have to do with Vizeran's plan?"

Grinna and Jorlan matched gazes, their hands moving quickly through questioning gestures, as if arguing who was going to explain.

Jorlan apparently lost the argument, because he threw up his hands in frustration. "Fine. House Do'Urden first. It's not a real bloodline, not any more. Obviously you know of its most famous scion"--he made a vague gesture, assuming everyone knew of whom he spoke--"but for the most part, the bloodline is dead. So the drow in that house today are... let us say, _blessed_ , to be there by the grace of the Baenres, the first house of the city."

"The house this Gromph is from, then," Lux said.

"Just so," Grinna answered. "He is brother to the current Matron Mother, Quenthel. Or was. We don't really know what happened to him."

"Anyway," Jorlan continued, "the point is, the new House Do'Urden is entirely composed of people that Quenthel Baenre wants to keep an eye on. 'Keep your enemies under your own roof?' Is that the phrase in Common?"

"More or less," Ambergris said.

Grinna smiled, adding, "Jorlan is just sour that he hasn't been invited to House Do'Urden."

"Oh, I was invited," he insisted. "Quite generously wooed, even -- the reborn house needed a new weapon master, someone to captain their forces. But let's say I was... not inclined to acquiesce."

"Matron Inshalee still can't believe you turned down that post," Rystia said. "She chafes to see another in the role."

Jorlan chuckled. "As I said earlier -- I'm always a disappointment. But luckily for you hapless surfacers, I ended up at Velkynvelve instead." He made a bow.

"This is the house that took the position of eighth from House Duskryn, then?" Gaulir asked, in memory of their conversation in the Gravenhollow.

Jorlan nodded. "Not that it troubles me much -- nor the matron of the eighth house."

Only Rystia was shaking with laughter, wiping at her eyes. When she composed herself enough to speak, she said, "Of course. I see now. Matron Mother Inshalee Do'Urden. Or as she was once called... Inshalee _Duskryn_. Younger sister to Prae'anelle, always wanting to get out from under her sibling's thumb, eh?

Jorlan raised an eyebrow, a gesture of sly admission. "So how _is_ my dear mother going to reduce civilian casualties when the demon princes rampage through her city?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically the "Great Wheel" model of the planes is no longer valid by the 1480s DR? OH WELL. It's much more interesting things than the tree model.
> 
> I believe, rules as written, Rystia Zav is a random crazy human NPC you can meet in Mantol-Derith, a Harper spy infiltrating the Zhentarim. Here, obviously, she's still a Harper spy and an elf, but she's more interested in infiltrating Menzoberranzan. Obviously the fact that she's hanging out in the Tower, or is Grinna's girlfriend, is entirely our DM's take on it. (And yet, isn't this better?) Our DM also got rid of Vizeran's pet death slaad, because seriously? (Fake drow girlfriend > death slaad). 
> 
> The drow political situation laid out here is a weird blend of the RAW module, canonical-to-books stuff (like, the re-creation of House Do'Urden) and custom stuff our DM came up with. For example, the figurehead Matron Mother is someone else entirely, not Inshalee. As I said before, I have very little patience for trying to catch up on the Drizzt books, so mostly I have Nixon, what of the RAW module isn't spoilery, and the FR wiki to go on. 
> 
> (And if you know the lore better than me, you probably can guess that there's something -- or someone -- that Rystia and Jorlan are dancing around here. But we the players didn't know that at this point in the adventure, so you don't get to know it, either).
> 
> Also once again Jorlan refuses to mention Drizzt. My headcanon is that Jorlan disdains the guy; they are of an age, were probably at Melee-Magthere at the same time, and their families were always in competition for that valued eighth spot on the Council. Plus I think Jorlan bought in more to the chaotic Drow Mindset (tm), at least grudgingly. So he probably sees Drizzt as an insufferable twat who thinks there's no blood on his hands.
> 
> Two funny Jorlan moments here that were true to the actual session: 1) Jorlan did in fact go all VOLDEMORT VOLDEMORT VOLDEMORT about the name of Lolth. 2) The comment about the noodle shops was in fact made. (Which is how my "Jorlan likes a dish called Menzoberranzan noodles" headcanon got started).
> 
> (We finally did get to Menzoberranzan in the campaign, and LET ME TELL YOU how angry we all were that there was no time to go slumming for noodles. I may need to write a fix-it fic just for this).
> 
> (Alsoalso we are only about one or two sessions away from the end of the game. AND THEN WHAT WILL I DO WITH MY LIFE???)
> 
> (Continue to write unending authors' notes, apparently).


End file.
